The Doctor Doctor Relationship
by hwshipper
Summary: What if Wilson found a girlfriend whom House actually liked? Moreover, what if she kind of liked House too? Set in a rather extended late season 2. Spoilers through to 3.1 'Meaning'.
1. Chapter 1: Wilson Gets a Girlfriend

**Title:** The Doctor-Doctor Relationship  
**Author: **hwshipper**  
A/N: **Set in a rather extended late season 2. Spoilers through to 3.1 'Meaning'. Non-monogamous relationships. The explicit scenes are m/m. Story includes m/f relationship, but no m/f sex.

This fic would never have been written without my beta and cheerleader, **srsly_yes**, who has my undying and sincere gratitude. Written for house_bigbang with wonderful art by jiraiyasgirl (linked from my LiveJournal and AO3 sites).

**The Doctor-Doctor Relationship**

It was just typical, Wilson reflected later, that House asked about his date right after giving him the most mind-boggling blowjob. In fact possibly the best orgasm of his life, although that might have just been the immediate bodily reaction.

As he slumped down onto the sheets, House came wriggling up the bed next to him, planted a big wet sloppy kiss on Wilson's mouth, and said, "So, tell me about your date."

Wilson had not yet regained the power to speak and could only mumble, "Wha?"

House kissed him again. Wilson tasted various bodily fluids.

"Your date. With the bright young postdoc in the Sociology faculty. Tell me about it."

Wilson uttered some syllables that made little sense, which House apparently correctly interpreted as "Why _now_?", as he replied, "Because you're at your most vulnerable."

This was true. Realizing that House wasn't about to shut up, Wilson hoisted himself up a couple of inches on the pillow, opened his eyes and cleared his throat.

"Her name's Jean. She's thinking about doing a piece of research on sociology of medicine and gender, maybe looking at cancer patients. She contacted me because she wanted to look around an oncology department."

"And to her surprise, the head of oncology decided to give her a personal tour," House carried on. "She saw the department, watched you play with the cancer kids, made nice to the terminals, flirted with you, you flirted back, yada yada yada."

"If you know all this, why are you asking?" Wilson said peevishly.

"I know the word on the hospital grapevine. Half your staff heard that you ended up asking her to dinner the following night. Which would have been last night."

Wilson sighed. "She's intelligent, attractive, and single. And we hadn't finished talking about her possible project. Dinner was the obvious thing to suggest."

"And you just talked about cancer."

"No, we talked about lots of things!" Wilson realized he sounded defensive and changed to a bored monotone. "We got on very well. She seems very nice. No, we didn't have sex. Didn't even kiss. We're meeting again for drinks next week. Is that enough?"

House considered. "For the moment."

"So can I go to sleep now?"

"No," said House, with a glint in his eye. "It's _my_ turn now."

* * *

Dinner with Jean had been great. Wilson couldn't remember when he'd enjoyed a nicer evening out with a woman.

They went to a little Italian restaurant not far from the hospital. She'd worn glasses at the hospital, but took them off when they got inside to reveal large hazel eyes; she explained she only needed the glasses for reading and writing. She slid them into a red velvet pouch and put them in her bag. She ordered lasagna verdi, and he watched her cutting it up carefully and popping small pieces in her mouth; he admired how she somehow managed to avoid getting any spinach between her neat white teeth. Her wavy brown hair pooled over her shoulders, and she had a habit of flipping it back when she smiled.

Wilson had spaghetti Bolognese, and promptly regretted it when he twirled spaghetti around his form with a little too much vigor, and got a spot of tomato sauce on his tie. One of his favorite ties, too. She'd laughed about it with him, then leaned across the table to dab at it with a damp napkin; he'd gotten a rather good view down her top. He hoped he hadn't looked too long.

They'd shared a bottle of dark red wine, and talked about sociology, medicine, and how the two disciplines related. She spoke with authority about her subject, obviously intelligent and knowledgeable; Wilson felt he would not like to disagree with her on a topic she knew anything about, and wondered what House would make of her.

She was warm, friendly and open for the most part, although a little reserved when it came to talking about herself.

"So, how come you ended up at Princeton?" Wilson asked, having learned she was a West Coast girl, from California.

She shrugged a little. "I've been in New York the last couple of years on a postdoc, felt I needed to get out of the city for a while."

He sensed there was more to it than that, and waited, but she obviously wasn't inclined to share any more.

As the level in the wine bottle went down, conversation shifted to music, TV, movies. She relaxed a bit more, and even mentioned an ex-boyfriend of hers at one point in passing, with just a touch of bitterness; Wilson recognized a raw recent-break-up straightaway, and adroitly steered discussion in another direction. Then they discovered a mutual love of Broadway musicals, and joined each other in a rousing chorus of _Oklahoma!_ over dessert.

They left the restaurant late in the evening.

"I had a great time," he said as they paused at the curb and she waved for a cab. "Would you like to go for a drink sometime, next Friday perhaps?"

She hesitated a little, and Wilson mentally kicked himself for being too eager. But then she said, "Sure," and his heart swelled with pleasure.

As he headed home, he found himself humming _I Could Have Danced All Night, _and wondered again what House would make of her. He decided not to volunteer any information unless asked.

* * *

The morning after House had prised out details of his date with Jean, they were having breakfast in House's kitchen. Wilson was just placing a plate of steaming French toast in front of House when House said, "It'll never work out, you know."

Wilson glared and tried to take the plate away, but House had already planted a fork firmly in the pile of golden triangles. Wilson rolled his eyes, fetched his own plate, and sat down opposite House.

"And why do you say that, oh great one?" Wilson took a bite and steeled himself for the differential diagnosis.

"Three reasons."

Great. "Shall I fetch a whiteboard?"

"For one, she's just using you." House was lofty. "She needs you for research for her project. Which sounds dumb anyway."

"That's how we met. Nothing to stop her then falling for my charms," Wilson countered.

"When she doesn't need you anymore, she won't be nearly as attractive to you. Secondly, she must be at least fifteen years younger than you."

"No. You've never met her!" Wilson protested through a mouthful of French toast. "You've never even seen her!"

"If she's a postdoc fresh from a PhD she must be mid-twenties. You're forty, as good as."

"No, I'm not!" Wilson was genuinely indignant. "And it's her second postdoc, so I think that makes her late twenties. Maybe even early thirties."

House shrugged. "But thirdly, and most importantly, this is an insane experiment by you to prove to yourself that you can hold down some sort of proper relationship with a woman. After three crappy marriages and God knows how many pathetic affairs--including a patient, for Christ's sake."

The last observation was below-the-belt; Wilson narrowed his eyes but didn't say anything.

"This is shown," House continued his diagnosis, "by the fact you didn't try and sleep with Joan--"

_"Jean!" _Wilson knew perfectly well House was playing with him, but that didn't make it any less exasperating.

"--on the first date, or even kiss her, but are in fact taking things slowly, trying to do it right, step by step. You really want this to work."

Wilson was silent. House raised an astonished eyebrow. "You admit I'm right?"

"There's a grain of truth in that." Wilson sighed. "But now you've got your hooks into it, my relationship with her is doomed, isn't it? You'll go out and stalk her, find out lots of terrible things that mean she's really unsuitable for me, scare her with a few well-chosen anecdotes about my marriages, and that'll be the end of that."

"You don't need me around to screw up your relationship." House objected. "You're perfectly capable of doing that all by yourself."

Wilson put his fork down and looked at House. "You've never even given me the chance."

"I bet if I did, you'd screw things up perfectly well all by yourself. I'd lay money on it."

"All right then," Wilson said unexpectedly. "A hundred bucks says I don't screw things up this time. And you don't sabotage it."

House consumed some more French toast, frowning.

"House?" Wilson pressed him.

"You want to bet on a relationship succeeding. That has to be the most stupid bet ever."

"That's right." Wilson was enthusiastic now. "Give me the time and space to screw it up myself, and we'll see what happens."

"I can do that." House's tone was magnanimous.

"Promise?"

"What is this, the Boy Scouts?" House snapped, and rolled his eyes. "All right, I _promise _I will let you screw this relationship up all by yourself with no interference from me."

"Thanks." Wilson picked up his fork.

"Hey." House's voice was lighthearted but with a serious undertone. "We still get to _do _stuff, right?" He waggled a meaningful eyebrow.

Wilson grinned back. "After last night? You must be kidding."

Blue eyes gleaming, House leaned over and speared a piece of Wilson's French toast. He then stuck a finger in the maple syrup and sucked it off noisily.

* * *

House was not, of course, a man of his word. Both House and Wilson knew perfectly well that House would think nothing of breaking his promise if he thought the situation was merited, if Wilson annoyed him, or maybe even just on a whim.

But as it happened, House was going through a good patch with his leg, was in the mood to humor Wilson, and decided to keep his promise. At least for the moment.

There was however no reason not to _investigate_ her. So long as he didn't then _interfere_, that was totally within the rules.

So over the next week House started his usual style of investigation into Jean, starting with some online research. He quickly found paragraphs about her on the Princeton internet and intranet sites; an impressive academic résumé, as one would expect.

He spent some time pondering her picture. She looked fairly ordinary; nice smile, shoulder-length brown hair, brown eyes behind small dark-rimmed spectacles worn high on her nose. A slight resemblance to Bonnie and Julie, House observed with a touch of trepidation. Damn Wilson and his types.

He continued with the requisite look at her Princeton personnel file. Although she wasn't an employee of the hospital, there was a connection between the hospital and university computer systems, and House had his methods. These included Cuddy's mainframe password, which opened a lot of doors. He didn't find anything very notable within, although he had to admit Wilson's guess had been closer than his about her age; she was twenty-nine.

Meanwhile, Wilson met Jean for a drink as arranged, then took her to see a movie the following weekend. This pattern continued for another week or so, and House could not help but observe Wilson was conspicuously avoiding bringing her to the hospital.

"Do I not get to meet her?" House asked one evening at his apartment, affecting heartbreak.

"Not if I can help it." Wilson was terse. "And no stalking us from behind a bush and jumping out to say hi to her, alright? You're not interfering, remember?"

"I remember." House was cross. "I don't need to meet her anyway. I can tell you kissed her for the first time last night."

This was a complete shot in the dark but Wilson looked sufficiently unnerved for House to realize he was close to the mark. House was pleased; he did like to cultivate an impression of omniscience.

"Actually, it was two nights ago. And she kissed me," Wilson said, a trifle defensively. "And it's none of your business."

"What, I'm not interfering so I can't be curious?" House leaned forward, a mischievous look in his eye. "Was it like this?" He fastened his lips on Wilson's mouth and kissed him deeply. Wilson tried to speak, and it came out as _Mmph_.

"No tongues," he said breathlessly, when House pulled back an inch.

"Oh, so more like this?" House leaned forward again and this time touched his nose against Wilson's nose, then brushed his lips ever so gently against Wilson's lips, before kissing him very softly. Wilson closed his eyes and couldn't stop a slight moan.

Eventually he managed to say, "I'm not talking about this."

"Fine." House pressed his mouth onto Wilson's, and they didn't speak for quite a while after.

* * *

House continued his Jean investigation with an exploratory trip over to the Sociology faculty offices. It wasn't easy as he didn't want her to see him; the problem with being six foot two with a limp and a cane was that people tended to remember him. And then Wilson would find out that he'd been poking around.

He picked a time when according to the faculty online bulletin board she would be teaching a class, found her office and rummaged around. Essays, assignments in need of marking, boring teaching stuff. There was a notebook House flipped through to find scribbles about conversations with cancer patients; notes that looked like they'd been taken on her trip around the oncology ward. Nothing about Wilson as far as he could see; no doodled hearts with _Dr. Wilson _written inside.

He moved on, and found a cafeteria on the floor below. House wandered inside in search of a snack, only to get a shock when he saw her there. She was sitting at a table, with a small group of women, chatting away. It was lunchtime--time had passed quicker than he'd realized.

House retreated to the corridor and mused for a minute. The group looked like a regular crowd who might just meet for lunch and sit in the same place each day. And that place just happened to be a large corner booth, where someone might sit the other side of the partition and hear the conversation but not be seen.

Next day, a Friday, House was there for lunch. He arrived as early as possible to get the seat he wanted, and was immensely satisfied when the same group of women arrived one by one and sat in the same booth, just on the other side of the partition from where he was. The drawback was that he couldn't see them, only hear them, and he didn't know what Jean's voice sounded like.

He listened patiently to the conversation, waiting for a clue. It transpired that the group consisted of young female postdocs from various different departments, exchanging stories of stupid undergrads, tales of research woe, and the latest gossip from all corners of Princeton.

Finally his patience was rewarded when a voice said, "Hey, Jean, weren't you seeing Handsome Doctor James last night?"

The _handsome _was stressed like a title. House allowed himself a huge grin.

"Ooh, I haven't heard about this," said another voice, shrill and high. "Jean's got a boyfriend?"

"Yeah, and a doctor no less," the first voice confirmed. "And _cute._ He dropped by the office the other day and we all swooned at his feet. Big brown eyes and lovely hair and so nice, so charming--"

"Shut up, you guys," said a different voice, and House perked up his ears. So _this _was Jean. Low voice, serious tone, but with a hint of amusement.

"He sounds far too good to be true. There must be something wrong with him," said Shrill Voice. "Serial killer? Married?"

"Divorced three times," said the first voice, and there were some _Ahs_ around the table.

"Serial cheater," Shrill Voice immediately judged. "Can't keep it in his pants."

"We don't know that." Jean came through, strong and clear. House smirked a little; she had a lot to learn.

"Oh come on Jean, there can't be many decent excuses for three divorces," said a new voice. "What's that saying,?--once could be a mistake, twice looks like carelessness, and I don't even know what three times would be. Definitely a sign of some grave character defect. Maybe he _is_ a serial killer."

"Well, I'll let you know if I discover any evidence of that." Jean's voice was dry.

"So, how did it go last night, Jean?" the first voice returned to the original question. "You've had quite a few dates now, is it serious?"

Jean didn't reply, and House would have given a lot to be able to see the expressions and gestures round the table, as suddenly several voices whooped and hollered, and the first voice said triumphantly, "You slept with him! I _knew_ it!"

"I am not discussing this with you guys," Jean protested, and although comments and teasing carried on for several minutes, she wouldn't be drawn any further. The conversation eventually moved onto other things.

House waited for a bit, then managed to slip out of the cafeteria unnoticed. He went straight back to the hospital, and found Wilson just coming off clinic duty. The two of them fell into step heading towards their offices. As the elevator door closed behind them, House fixed Wilson with a gimlet eye, and said, "You've slept with her."

"How the hell did you know that?" Wilson looked understandably flummoxed.

"Oh... it's the way you're walking." House was airy. "Big night last night, I can see."

Bushy eyebrows twitched with suspicion. "House, were you spying on me?"

"No!" House said indignantly as a reflex, and added, "No!" again because it was actually true. He might have been spying on Jean but he hadn't been spying on Wilson, and he could even prove it. "Thursday night's my poker night, you know that. I won thirty dollars off bus stop guy, while you were sealing the deal."

"Hmm." Wilson didn't look totally convinced, but House saw he'd scored some points.

* * *

"I hear Wilson's got a new girlfriend. Jean?" Cameron asked enthusiastically one morning. "What's she like, is she nice?"

"No, she's a harpy from hell," House barked. "She must have a cripple allergy or something, 'cause Wilson won't introduce us."

"You haven't met her?" Chase was clearly entertained by this. "But they've been going out what, two months?"

Two months and ten days, House knew, but he wasn't going to admit to that level of interest. He scowled instead. "No idea."

"I know Wilson's love life is more interesting, but can we get back to our patient?" Foreman said with an air of great forbearance.

"Listen to the man," House declared, and hit the whiteboard with his cane.

The case was easily diagnosed, and House left the patient to the tender ministrations of his staff. He turned to his Gameboy, but found the conversation rankled with him. He had to meet her. Perhaps he should accidentally bump into Wilson and Jean together somewhere. But then Wilson would accuse him of interfering and probably of breaking his promise, maybe try and claim that hundred bucks, and the situation didn't quite seem to warrant that.

The last straw came a couple of days later when Cuddy finished bawling House out in her office about clinic hours owed, and then remarked as he turned to leave, "Hey, I bumped into Wilson and Jean in the bar across the street last night. I only saw them for a minute, but don't they seem like a nice couple?"

House glared. "How would I know?"

Cuddy was amused. "You haven't met her? Wilson thinks you'll scare her off?"

Fuck this. Enough was enough. He had to engineer a situation where they could meet. Ideas flew around House's head. "Cuddy...how about I go to the clinic right now and do those two hours I missed?"

She stared at him in surprise. "Why the sudden change of heart? Is your current patient in an ethically unsound situation?"

"Nothing like that. I just want a favor." House looked as innocent as he could. "I want you to throw a dinner party, and invite me and Wilson and his lovely new girlfriend. That's all."

Cuddy gazed at him speculatively. "You think that's worth two clinic hours? Which you owe me anyway?"

"Don't push me!" House snarled, but there was no heat in it.

"Give me another two hours, and I'll start thinking about it," Cuddy drawled.

House did the two hours he'd skipped, and no more. As he'd expected, Cuddy herself was sufficiently interested in Jean to go along with his idea; they were all duly invited round for Sunday dinner next weekend.


	2. Chapter 2: Dinner at Cuddy's

**Chapter 2**** : Dinner at Cuddy's **

James rang the doorbell and shuffled from foot to foot. He started humming something it took Jean a moment to recognize; _Luck Be A Lady Tonight_.

"Relax," Jean said to him, tucking her glasses into their case. Now she wasn't driving, she didn't need them. "You're far more worried about this than I am. Anyone would think it was _you_ meeting _my_ boss and _my_ best friend."

"Yeah, sorry." James laughed in a rather forced manner. He carried on humming: _They call you Lady Luck, but there is room for doubt...._

He stopped abruptly as a smiling woman with big curly hair and a pronounced chest under a clingy red top opened the door. Jean reached to flick her own hair back, a little self-consciously.

"James, hi, and Jean, how wonderful to meet you at last! Do come in." The woman's voice was welcoming, her gestures expansive; Jean warmed to her immediately. "Jean, I'm Lisa Cuddy, let me take your coat."

"Thank you, I'm very pleased to meet you too," Jean responded. She took off her coat, and found herself relieved she had chosen to wear her chocolate brown silk top; she'd nearly gone for the red one, not at all dissimilar to Cuddy's, and that could have been a little embarrassing.

"Lisa, thanks for inviting us, you're very kind." James proffered the bottle of wine they had brought. Cuddy took it, exclaiming thanks.

Jean mulled briefly on James calling her _Lisa_. He called her Cuddy when talking about her, so Jean thought of her as Cuddy too. And he called his friend House. Apparently, doctors called each other by their surnames...except maybe when going to each other's houses for dinner.

They came inside, and Cuddy ushered them through the hallway into a large living room. Jean could hear James humming again; _Let's keep the party polite..._

"It's a beautiful house you've got here," Jean exclaimed, looking around with admiration.

And there among the immaculate decoration and tasteful furnishings, in the most comfortable chair in the room, sprawled a man who somehow managed to look scruffy despite wearing a smart dress shirt (but no tie) and pants. Jean didn't need to spot the cane propped up against the arm of the chair to know that this was the notorious best friend, about whom she had heard so much, and yet not enough.

"Jean, this is House. Greg House," James said unnecessarily. Jean came forward towards House. James had warned her that House wasn't one for handshakes or hugs, so she only intended to say hi. But to her surprise, House hauled himself to his feet and held out a hand. His handshake was firm, and she was careful to convey a steady grip back.

She could see James to one side, looking at House with an expression that could only be described as _suspicious_.

"Pleased to meet you, Jean," said House, and looked at her through piercing blue eyes. Jean felt his gaze travel up and down, assessing, sizing her up. She caught his eye and held the gaze for a few seconds. He chose to break the stare by sitting down again.

Cuddy inquired what they'd like to drink, served James and House bourbon, and poured glasses of wine for herself and Jean. She then sat down on the sofa next to Jean and said brightly, "So Jean, I hear you work in sociology, and are thinking of doing a project in the hospital? Do tell me about it."

"Well, it's only a proposal at the moment," Jean hastened to say. "It's a study of hospital patients and gender..."

Jean found herself chatting away to Cuddy, explaining the project, while House watched with apparent disinterest, and James finished his drink rather too fast.

"And why oncology?" Cuddy asked.

"I thought it would be interesting to compare experiences of cancer from a gender perspective," Jean explained. "Women with breast or cervical cancer, men with testicular or prostate cancer--"

"Men get breast cancer too, you know," House butted in. "More than four hundred men die of it every year in this country. Let's not forget those poor suckers."

House winked at the word _suckers_. James looked anywhere but at House.

"Perhaps that's not the _breast _terminology--I mean _best _terminology--to use," Jean said, rather daringly.

House opened his eyes wide, and batted back, "Guess I boobed."

James put a hand over his eyes and muttered, "House!"

"It's the present company. It's like a booby trap," House protested, and tipped a lascivious leer in Cuddy's direction. She simply rolled her eyes, like she'd heard all this before.

"Men can get so easily nipnotized," Jean riposted, and at that Cuddy laughed, House positively beamed, and James choked on his drink.

"Well, we'd better nip this conversation in the bud then," House said, piling on the single entendre with glee and despite the words, giving absolutely no sign that he intended to stop. "Perhaps--"

"Jean, why don't you come help me with the food and you can keep telling me about your project," Cuddy cut in smoothly, and Jean was relieved as she had been starting to run dry.

They went into the kitchen together and continued to chat for a few minutes. Cuddy remarked that Jean would need the hospital's management board approval before her project could go ahead, and Jean hastened to reassure her that of course permission would be sought in the proper way.

"Then I look forward to seeing your application. Go tell the boys to come through," Cuddy said, carrying a soup tureen through from the kitchen into the dining room.

Jean slipped back into the hallway, and paused just outside the living room door, hearing House and James talking in undertones.

"--pulling your punches," James was half-whispering.

"Cuddy told me I had to be on my best behavior," House said, sounding as innocent as a babe in arms. "Said she didn't want blood all over the walls, she just redecorated. Shouldn't you be pleased?"

"It just makes me worried, House," James murmured.

Jean pushed the door open loudly and announced, "Dinner's ready,"

* * *

Dinner was really very pleasant. Cuddy served a rich tomato soup to start, followed by roast beef with roasted potatoes, then chocolate mousse; the quality of the food was excellent, and complimented by a perfectly chosen red wine. Although Jean was sure Cuddy was capable of entertaining on a much larger scale, they sat around a small table close together, and it felt cozy and friendly.

House dominated the conversation whenever the topic caught his interest, and occasionally managed to take Jean by surprise with outrageous remarks about the nature of Cuddy's underwear drawer. Both James and Cuddy took such comments in their stride, however, and Jean decided that House really must be on his best behavior.

Cuddy played the perfect hostess and slipped easily into a facilitator role, working hard to draw House's fire on the one hand, and spending lots of time chatting to Jean on the other, while the boys snipped at each other in the background. Indeed, the person who came closest to making a fool of himself was James, who drank rather too much wine in the first half hour and went slightly slurred and rather sleepy as a consequence.

Jean was fascinated to observe House. James had mentioned him lots of times to her, but without going into detail. She had heard something about his reputation as a doctor, and that he was a difficult man to get on with, but that was it. James had obviously known him a very long time. She wondered if meeting House was the equivalent of _Meeting the Parents _for James. The stamp of approval, the sign that he thought their relationship was serious enough for her to meet the important people in his life.

In the middle of the main course, House leaned across with a fork and speared a roasted potato sitting on James's plate, causing James to protest, "House, there's a whole dish more of these right there on the table."

"Ah, but this one looked particularly crispy," House replied, placing it on his own plate and cutting it in half.

Jean was intrigued, thinking that friends were probably quite close to share food, or indeed steal it, and started to watch the two of them a little more closely. Cuddy didn't even seem to notice, and Jean wondered if Cuddy had known them both too long to see such things any more.

At the end of dessert, Cuddy and House were distracted arguing about whether to have coffee then or later, while James stood up and started to clear up the dessert bowls. Out of the corner of her eye, Jean saw James pick up House's bowl last and place it on the stack. There was still a small piece of chocolate mousse stuck to House's spoon. She then watched with increasing surprise as James picked up the spoon, put it in his mouth, and sucked the chocolate off.

Eating off House's spoon! How close were these two?

Jean was on the point of saying something, but swallowed it--what to say? Oblivious to her gaze, James turned and took all the bowls off to the kitchen sink, without any sign that he thought he had done anything odd at all.

* * *

After dinner, Jean found herself heading back to the living room with House, while Cuddy and James made coffee in the kitchen.

"Cripple's prerogative!" House announced, stamping back to the most comfortable armchair in the room.

Jean sat down in the straight backed chair next to it, rather tentatively, suddenly aware that she was alone with House for the first time. House propped his cane up against the arm of the chair, settled himself down, and looked at her through narrow blue slits.

"So... Jean," he drawled. "Born in San Fran, undergrad at Cornell, PhD at Yale, first postdoc at Columbia. Quite the high achiever."

Jean was a little surprised; so House had read her résumé. Or James had described her career to him and he had listened exceptionally well.

"Came to Princeton for its small but distinguished sociology faculty, the opportunity to teach and study in the gender research cluster, and the chance to do a second postdoc in the sociology of medicine," House rattled off. "Hope that's all meeting expectations."

Jean started in her chair. House's description of her motivations was taken word for word from her Princeton application letter. How on earth could House have seen that? She didn't even think she had kept a copy of it, let alone ever mentioned it to James. Suddenly she remembered James describing House as omniscient, and saying, "He'll probably have read your personnel file." She had thought it was a joke. She wasn't so sure now.

"And then she came to Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital to visit the oncology department," House carried on, addressing the air a couple of feet in front of his face. "But left with Handsome Doctor James, what a catch."

Now Jean was sure that House had another existence as a fly on her wall. How else could he know the nickname her faculty colleagues used? She was absolutely sure she hadn't mentioned to James that he was known as _Handsome Doctor James_. Nor did she think he would have heard it from any of them. If he had, he would have mentioned it to her in amused embarrassment, she was sure.

She wanted to go away, sit in a corner, and think. But House was peering closely at her, and she realized she had to respond. And there was no point getting upset, or uppity; she would just get trampled on. She had seen James and Cuddy reacting to barbed comments and outrageous statements from House, and observed how they each had their own, slightly differing, ways of deflecting and reflecting them back. She knew instinctively that anything less from her would only be despised.

"And then she came to Cuddy's dinner party to meet Wilson's friend," she responded, opting to carry on House's description of her, dropping into House's tone of voice and style of speaking (and also calling James 'Wilson', as House did--she didn't realize this until later). "He's called House, perhaps you know him?

House raised an amused eyebrow. "Good guy, right?"

"Well, she thinks he's an arrogant bastard who pokes his nose far too deeply into other people's business for his own good," Jean said brightly. "He's supposed to be an eccentric genius, but frankly it's rather hard to see under the layers of narcissism. Maybe it's the bad leg talking."

House stared at her in frank amazement. Jean wondered if she'd gone too far, but swiftly realized there was no danger of that. Slowly, the corners of House's mouth twitched in what might have been an appreciative smile.

Suddenly Wilson--_James, _she reminded herself belatedly--sat down next to Jean. His eyebrows were knitted together, and he said in a tone of trepidation, "So, are you two getting along?"

"Oh, we're just trading mutual insults," House said easily. James looked at House, and whatever he saw there apparently made him relax. Relief flooded over James's face, and Jean figured that somehow she'd impressed House. Obviously no mean feat.

In the car heading back to her apartment later, James asked, "So, you seemed to get along with House?"

"I think so," said Jean, keeping her eyes on the road.

"Yeah." There was something close to wonderment in James's voice. "I think so too."


	3. Chapter 3: Getting to Know You

**Chapter 3**** : Getting to Know You **

"So, Management Board approved Jean's project," Wilson said, dropping into the chair on the other side of House's desk.

House grunted and picked up a paperclip. "What does that mean? She'll be hanging around here with a clipboard asking questions?"

"The first stage is a postal questionnaire, but yes, she will be following up with some interviews." Wilson nodded. "I've suggested some patients who might be suitable for her study and amenable to talk."

"Haven't you split up with her yet?" House asked peevishly, bending the paperclip out of shape.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I have managed not to screw things up so far," Wilson replied with a half-smile.

House threw a glare back, but the truth was, he didn't particularly mind and he knew Wilson knew he didn't particularly mind. "Only a matter of time."

"We'll see." Wilson's half-smile became a full smile.

"We still on for the movie tonight?" House felt the need to check.

"_Tonight, tonight, won't be just any night_," Wilson hummed. "We sure are."

House glared at Wilson singing yet another fucking song from a musical, there was far too much of that going on at the moment, but glowed inwardly in the knowledge that this girlfriend was not shoving his ass out on the street.

The three ex-wives and the too-numerous ex-girlfriends had all hated House (House racked his brains, but really couldn't think of an exception), and taken uniform pleasure in trying to make Wilson spend as much time away from House as possible. Like they'd stood a chance with _that _in the long run. Whereas this time, Wilson was spending increasing amounts of time with Jean, and it was cutting into House's time a little, but the difference was that Jean didn't seem to be deliberately trying to crowd House out. And House was still spending most lunchtimes with Wilson, plus other time at work where patients permitted, and enough time at evenings and weekends to feel he was still a very comfortably-sized part of Wilson's life.

"And, your place after?" Wilson asked in the blandest tone imaginable

House smirked as he felt Wilson's foot nudge his own underneath the desk. The advantage in Wilson being younger than him, without a bum leg, and with a sex drive which wasn't blunted by years of painkilling prescription drugs, was that even with Jean, Wilson still seemed to have plenty enough sexual energy to go around.

"If you buy me popcorn," House said with an air of magnanimity, straightening the paperclip into a smooth line.

Wilson grinned. "You're a cheap date."

"_The minute you walked in the joint, I could tell you were a man of distinction, a real big spender," _House caroled, and grinned back; they both knew Wilson would be buying the tickets, too.

* * *

A couple of weeks later, House did indeed start to see Jean roaming the corridors of Princeton Plainsboro, armed with a notepad and a small digital recorder, spectacles balanced high on the bridge of her nose, visiting patient rooms. House gave it a few days, then in an idle moment when he wanted to distract himself from leg pain, decided one afternoon to show an interest .

Jean had been given a small temporary base in an oncology meeting room. The space was bare apart from a chair and a table. He found her sitting and staring at a laptop screen, and plumped himself down opposite.

"Finding lots of sob stories for your study?" House asked, popping a Vicodin.

Jean nodded soberly. "I was just talking to a woman who had two mastectomies, two years apart, and her husband left her just before the second one."

House grunted, and deliberately said something as offensive as possible_._ "Who can blame him? He signed up for fondling with fun-bags, not playtime with pancakes."

He waited for indignant outrage; a comment like that would have left Chase disgusted, Cameron upset, and made Foreman walk away resolving never to become House.

But Jean merely regarded him quietly for a minute, then said with barely a trace of sarcasm, "I'm sorry, that was insensitive of me." She nodded downwards. "I forgot you had your own penile amputation to deal with."

House was rendered speechless, then managed to splutter, "What the fuck? It was my _leg _that got crippled!" He took another second to recover, then swatted back, "You may not be a doctor, but I would expect you to know the difference between a leg and a penis. Or Wilson's seriously got problems in the sack."

"It's still a debridement of your masculinity," Jean retorted. "One minute you're strolling around, fit and whole; next minute, you're crippled and limping, one of your appendages obviously no longer fully functional." She paused, then turned the knife. "Also, your girlfriend left you right after it happened, I hear? Maybe that's how she saw it, too."

That was too much. House stood up, wheeled around on his cane and headed off down the corridor to his office. He threw himself down on his yellow corner chair, angry and hurt, but finding both emotions rapidly dissipating to be replaced by a degree of admiration.

A few minutes later, Jean came in the door, looking contrite.

"That," House said, his voice rough as sandpaper, "was none of your fucking business."

"I know," she said. "Sorry. But old Mrs. Petrello really didn't deserve your comment either."

"You give as good as you get," House marveled, and Jean looked a little embarrassed by that.

"You probably don't care about this, but do you remember your comment when we were at Cuddy's that men get breast cancer too?" she asked, a conciliatory note in her voice. "You might like to know it was really helpful to the study. There aren't any such male patients here right now, but I mentioned it to my colleagues doing this project in other hospitals and they've found a couple of very interesting cases."

"You're right, I don't care," House grumbled, and Jean looked a trifle quizzical. But House knew if Wilson had been there, he'd have known House was actually pleased to hear that. It just didn't show, about ten thick layers of skin down.

* * *

Jean sat buried in paperwork in her little room one day when she heard her name called. She looked up to find a petite elderly lady proffering a manila file. It was the Oncology Department secretary; Jean had found she basically ran the department on Wilson's behalf.

"Another prospective interviewee for you." The secretary handed Jean the file. "Dr. Wilson thought Mr. Oddfellow in room 14 might have a suitable gender-related story for you. Testicular cancer, both testicles removed in surgery, he banked some sperm beforehand as he and his wife still hope to have a child."

"That sounds very relevant, thank you," Jean was grateful. The secretary smiled and walked away.

It was fascinating to be spending some time in Princeton Plainsboro, Jean reflected, although she wasn't seeing much of Wilson. She was in fact trying to keep away from him as far as possible, partly because she didn't want to interrupt him at work, partly because she didn't want him influencing her project. She needed to be the dispassionate sociologist, and wasn't sure the cancer patients would treat her in the same way if they knew she was Dr. Wilson's girlfriend. Best to stay away.

Her room had glass walls and a glass door though, and as she sat musing, she spotted Wilson walking down a corridor. She quite often saw him in the distance, Princeton Plainsboro had so many of these glass partitions. And when he was walking through the hospital, he was often with House, as he was now.

Jean was always interested to watch the two of them walking. They were invariably close together, closer than people usually walked, she thought. Also Wilson unconsciously adopted a loping gait that complemented House's stride with the cane. She was sure Wilson--James--didn't walk like that when he was with her.

Since when had she started thinking of him as _Wilson_, anyway?... It was talking to all these patients who chatted away about their dear Dr. Wilson who they liked so much. It was rubbing off on her.

And she'd been spending a bit of time talking to House too, of course, who only ever referred to Wilson as Wilson. She remembered watching the two of them together at Cuddy's house. It was intriguing. It might be fun to see them together in other situations.

* * *

"I was talking to House today. We should all go out together sometime," she suggested that evening to Wilson. They were at her tiny apartment, and he had cooked; she sat with a glass of wine, watching him put the finishing touches to fettuccine alfredo with shrimp, humming _Food Glorious Food_. "Drinks, dinner perhaps?"

He looked at her quizzically as he ladled out portions. "You were talking to House, and then decided it would be a good idea if we all socialized? That's...unusual. He must have been in a good mood."

"Well, not really," she admitted. "Actually he told me sociology was a pretend science, and anybody studying sociology clearly failed at being a real scientist."

Wilson put a plate down in front of her. "Dare I ask what you replied?"

"I pointed out that Diagnostics is not a real branch of medicine, either," Jean related. "And he got all huffy and said he saves lives. I said yeah, one every week or two, if he put his mind to some proper branch of medicine he could save a lot more."

Wilson sat down opposite her and passed a hand over his face. "Well, I'll suggest we go out for a drink sometime, but honestly, I don't know if I can take it."

She smiled, reached out and plucked a particularly succulent piece of shrimp off his plate. "Maybe you just don't want _two _people stealing your food, glorious food."

"Yeah, I just might starve," Wilson laughed, and they chinked wine glasses.

* * *

"So, I hear you've been bothering Jean during her research," Wilson said to House over lunch in the hospital cafeteria the next day.

"She loves it," House said carelessly, spearing a piece of chicken in Wilson's salad. Wilson observed that House had acknowledged the mild rebuke by going for a smaller piece than he might have done.

"She said we should all go out for a drink sometime," Wilson suggested. "How about it? Friday night, perhaps?"

House chewed on the chicken thoughtfully. "Nuh huh. You two kids go out and enjoy yourselves. I've got a big date planned with that sexy beast, TiVo."

"No? It'll be fun!" Wilson protested. "You two can sit and snipe at each other all night."

"I'm not interfering. I promised, remember?" House said with an air of innocence, and that made Wilson frown. He worked his way through House's train of thought.

"You think...if you spend time with us together, you'll drive us apart somehow? Maybe just by poking a stick at us if you're curious, or bored..."

"Hey, I've got a hundred bucks riding on this," House said mildly.

Wilson nodded and let it go, but he knew House didn't care about the hundred bucks, or breaking his promise. He could see that House genuinely wasn't inclined to break up this relationship with Jean, at least not now, which made Wilson's mind boggle. But there was no point asking about it, as House would never admit it in a million years.

* * *

House had continued to eavesdrop behind the potted plant in the Sociology faculty cafeteria occasionally. It was much more difficult to do now Jean now knew what he looked like. But he still headed over there on the odd lunchtime when Wilson was otherwise occupied.

One day he managed to take up his seat before the group of young female postdocs arrived at their usual table. They talked for a boring amount of time about other things--Jean and Wilson were old news by now--before House got a most unpleasant surprise.

One of the girls said, apropos of nothing, "So Jean, has Handsome Doctor James asked you to marry him yet?"

House was shocked to the core, and shocked in turn to find himself shocked to the core. Where the fuck had that come from?

"Don't be ridiculous," Jean's voice resounded firmly. "We've been going out three months."

"Ah, but he's the serial marrying kind, isn't he?" her colleague countered. "It can only be a matter of time."

The conversation led into a general debate about whether having been married three times would make someone more or less likely to want to do it again. Jean barely contributed at all, and discussion then switched to someone else they knew who had been married twice. House ate his lunch without tasting it and sneaked out. He walked back to the hospital in a daze, troubled.

Back at Princeton Plainsboro, he walked through reception and into the elevator when unexpectedly, Wilson appeared, dashing in as the doors began to close.

"Hey," Wilson said, a trifle breathlessly, and then looked at House's face. "What's up? Patient dying? Cuddy on your case?"

House turned and looked at Wilson, and said fiercely, "I won't be your best man. Not again."

Wilson opened and shut his mouth a couple of times, and then said, "Alright, I have no idea where that came from."

"You can ask your asshole brother," House snapped, turning his gaze towards the elevator door. "He thinks you should have asked him the last three times anyway."

"House, I don't know if you're trying to screw with me, or if you're just very paranoid." Wilson spoke with some exasperation. "But I can assure you I've got no intention of getting married again. I only just got divorced, for the third time, remember?"

The doors slid open, and they both stepped out. As they headed down the corridor, Wilson added, "And even if I _was _crazy enough to ask Jean to marry me, there's no way she'd accept. She's way too sensible, and she's still recovering from the ex in New York who broke her heart."

Wilson side-stepped into his office and shut the door, leaving House out in the corridor, agog to know more.

* * *

Jean was having a very productive chat with Mr. Oddfellow, the double testicular cancer patient who still hoped to have children, and his wife. She was surprised, however, to discover in passing that Mr. Oddfellow was actually House's patient, rather than Wilson's.

"Well, Dr. Wilson is my doctor, of course, for the cancer," Mr. Oddfellow hastened to explain. "But the surgery was a few weeks ago. Then I got a rather nasty infection, and at first I thought it was connected, but it turned out it wasn't. For a while nobody seemed to know what it was. Dr. House figured it out, and I seem to be on the mend now."

"Not that we've actually seen Dr. House," Mrs. Oddfellow put in, with a touch of bitterness.

"No?" Jean was surprised, then recalled that House didn't meet patients if he could possibly help it.

"No," Mr. Oddfellow confirmed sadly. "His staff are very nice of course, especially Dr. Cameron, most helpful. But it would be reassuring to see Dr. House himself. I do worry sometimes, just a little..."

They carried on talking for a while, and Jean discerned that both Oddfellows really were more uneasy about the situation than either would admit. They were a pleasant couple and she felt sorry for them. What was House's problem? Would it really be such a big deal for him to have a few words with the people he treated?

After the interview, she walked down to House's office. It was empty, so she had a friendly word with Dr. Foreman, who was working in the next-door conference room. Foreman directed her to a patient's room, which surprised her until she got there to find it was the room of a guy in a coma, and House was sitting next to the unconscious man eating chips and watching TV.

Unsurprisingly he wasn't pleased to see her, and glowered at her when she walked in, picked up the remote and turned the TV off.

"Your patient, Mr. Oddfellow. You haven't seen him, or his wife," she said.

"I don't see patients," House barked, screwing up the empty bag of chips. "What do you care, anyway?"

"I've been interviewing them for my study. They're worried and concerned, and would be really reassured by actually meeting their doctor."

House snorted and took his pill bottle from a pocket. "No, they wouldn't. What do you think reassures patients, Ms. Sociologist? It's the smiling friendly smart doctor in a suit, tie and white coat. Not a bad-tempered unshaven cripple in jeans and a T-shirt, and biker boots."

He propped his feet up on a small table, to show off the boots. They were smart black boots, with thick chunky soles and zips down the sides; Jean supposed this made them more convenient to take on and off.

Jean considered what House had said for a second. "It's not what you're wearing that's important, so much as the air of authority. The _actual _authority. It's your name on his wristband. What does it take for you to see a patient, blood?"

"You know my motivations. Drugs?" House swallowed a pill, then suggested with a sarcastically helpful air, "Sex? You could show me your breasts."

Jean fought the temptation to call his bluff; she didn't want to get called on it. "Yeah, that's gonna happen."

"Okay...how about information?" House tucked the pill bottle back in a pocket, then spread out his hands. "Tell me about your ex in New York who broke your heart."

Jean was taken aback, but did her best not to show it. She hadn't shared that information with many people, not in Princeton, anyway. She prevaricated. "You're not interested in that."

"Yes I am," House said promptly. "I'm curious about everything."

"No, you're not. You don't care enough about most things to be curious about them."

Eyelid flicker. "I hope you're not accusing me of _caring_. I'm curious as to why an intelligent, attractive woman has gotten to age 29 without being snapped up."

Jean took a deep breath and spread her own hands out. "I'll tell you about it after you go talk to the Oddfellows."

"You don't trust me?" House grumbled.

"Of course not."

"Wise woman." House reached for his cane and levered himself up. "Gimme five."

Minutes, Jean assumed, rather than a hand slap. She followed him through the hospital, and noticed that although he might not have seen his patient before, he knew exactly which room to go to. He went in without ceremony, and she stopped at the door, just close enough to hear him say, "Mr. Oddfellow? I'm your doctor, Dr. House."

She watched through glass walls as he had a conversation with the Oddfellows. They looked surprised, then pleased, and didn't start throwing things at him. A few minutes later when House turned to go, Mr. Oddfellow held out a hand; House hesitated before shaking, but he did shake.

He emerged, and asked, "Satisfied?"

She nodded, and led the way down the corridor to her little room.

"There's not much to tell," she said, when they were back inside four walls. She sat down at the table, folding her arms across her body, and House plumped himself down opposite.

"I did my bit." House tapped his cane. "Spill."

She didn't need them, but she reached inside her pocket for her glasses, and slipped them on.

"He was married," Jean said simply, knowing the story was terribly clichéd and hating herself for that. "He was a professor at Yale. I was a grad student, followed him to Columbia, young and stupid and willing to wait for him, right up until I realized I would be waiting forever."

"Was he _your _professor?" House probed.

"No, he wasn't even in the Sociology faculty, I just met him on campus one day." Jean didn't want to go into any more detail than this. "It ended when I finally accepted he was never going to leave his wife."

House's brows were furrowed and he wrinkled his nose in concentration. "What, you just woke up one day and the scales fell from your eyes?"

"Not quite." Jean took a deep breath, feeling adrenaline pumping as she got to the part that wasn't common knowledge, wasn't known by her Princeton friends and colleagues. "I woke up one day and found I was pregnant. And then, when I found out he still wasn't going to leave his wife, the scales fell from my eyes."

House was quiet for a moment, then said, "I'm sorry."

"I lost the baby," Jean added, feeling it necessary to complete the story. "It might have happened anyway, but I think the stress of the situation didn't help. And then I had to get out of the city, so I looked for another postdoc."

"So the reasons in your Princeton application were a load of crap." House sounded fascinated. "The reputation of the faculty, the chance to work in the gender research cluster—"

"No, that was all true," Jean protested. "But I could hardly write, _Need to get away from my bastard ex-boyfriend_, could I?"

House drummed his fingers on the table. "So he broke your heart and you miscarried. Good sob story, but there's gotta be more to it than that."

Jean opened her mouth to deny it, but damn it, he was right, and somehow there seemed little point in denying it. She knew he would keep poking until he got it. "The miscarriage was incomplete. I bled all over the place and had D&C."

_Dilation and curettage._ House frowned and nodded. "Under general anesthetic, but low risk--"

"I was unlucky," Jean cut in. "I developed Asherman's Syndrome."

"Intra-uterine adhesions. Fuck." House nodded, with understanding this time. "How bad?"

"Bad. I became infertile. I could try hysteroscopy, but I was told my uterine cavity was probably 'beyond surgical intervention'." Jean quoted. Suddenly tears sprang to her eyes; she blinked hard behind her spectacles, determined not to cry in front of House, and shrugged instead. "I never really wanted children anyway, but there's a difference between having the option and not having the option. I...had to get out of the city."

House was silent for a few seconds, then said, "Wilson knows all this."

It wasn't a question, but she nodded anyway. "He's very understanding and supportive."

"Of course he is. That's practically his trademark." House sighed, and stood up to go. He turned around at the door. "Tell me you wreaked some revenge on Professor Bastard."

Jean allowed herself a small smile. "I went to see his wife just before I left, told her everything. My friends back there tell me she's divorcing him and screwing him for everything he's got."

"Attagirl." House's face looked grim, but his eyes were smiling as he left the room.


	4. Chapter 4: Doorstep Night

**Chapter 4**** : Doorstep night **

Wilson ambled into House's office one morning, hands in the pockets of his neat white coat. "Jean's away at a conference in Chicago for a couple of days this week."

House already knew; she had put up a notice on the Sociology faculty bulletin board changing her classes around. "Wednesday night and Thursday night."

"That's right." Wilson nodded. "I thought I might come round to your place on Wednesday night? I'll cook."

His voice was deadpan but his eyes told another story. House looked at him and read between the lines, _"I want to fuck you senseless Wednesday night."_

"Sure. Stay over if you want," House said, equally deadpan.

It had been weeks since he and Wilson had really done much beyond the odd blowjob or handjob; this was the first opportunity in some time to do more. He knew Wilson was reading the message back loud and clear; _"Let's spend all night taking turns to fuck each other senseless."_

"Great," Wilson said, and ambled out again.

* * *

On Wednesday night Wilson arrived at House's apartment with armfuls of bags of delicious smelling ingredients, and House knew he was to be seduced by food.

"What's it to be?" House asked, sticking his nose into a bag and sniffing hopefully.

"Vietnamese beef stew," Wilson replied, and House sighed with satisfaction at the prospect of _bò kho,_ one of his favorites.

Before Wilson could get too smug, House hastened to complain, "Doesn't that take hours and hours, though?"

"The meat's been marinating overnight," Wilson was quick to reassure, and House had to give it to the man, he thought of everything.

House's apartment was quickly overwhelmed with wafting scents of garlic, lemon grass, five spice powder, star anise. Wilson simmered the stew on the stove for more than an hour; House wandered around, basking in the sensual atmosphere, dipping his finger in the stew whenever Wilson wasn't looking, and accepting the annoyed smacks he got when Wilson turned round to find him doing so.

Banned from the kitchen, House sat at his piano and played showtune melodies, adding little decorative twists and turns of his own. During a smooth, dreamy rendition of _People Will Say We're In Love_ Wilson came to sit beside him, and they necked on the piano seat like teenagers at a movie.

Dinner was rich, delicious, stupendous, the meat fairly melting in the mouth; Wilson had outdone himself. Afterwards they sat on the couch, and necked again; and then Wilson, sweaty from the heat in the kitchen, decided to take a shower. House joined him and they made out under the hot spray, moved on to the bedroom, and the sex was not only mind-blowingly good but lasted a very satisfyingly long time, gradually building into an explosion for both of them.

Yes, it was a good night.

"Wanna come around to my place tomorrow night?" Wilson murmured, as they lay in post-orgasmic stupor. "We could play PlayStation. I've got that new Need For Speed game."

"Tempting." House tried to remember the last time he'd been to Wilson's place. He recalled that Wilson, post-marriage to Julie/ridiculous affair with Grace, had moved into a hotel. "Aren't you still in that crappy hotel room?"

"I'm in a hotel _apartment _now," Wilson corrected. "Much more space. Kitchen area, separate bedroom and everything."

House yawned. "I'll be there."

House drifted off to sleep that night with a warm rosy glow. He went into the office the next morning, Thursday, in an exceptionally good mood that unnerved all his staff.

* * *

Jean spent Wednesday night sleepless in a singularly uncomfortable hotel bed, the bad end to a poor day. The conference was disappointing, the sessions mostly not as relevant to her areas of interest as she had expected, and a couple of friends and former colleagues she had hoped to meet had not managed to come after all.

The next morning, Thursday, she heard the one speaker she had really come to hear (worth the trip, fortunately), and then decided there was no point sticking around for another night without sleep. She would leave a day early. She grabbed her stuff, checked out of the hotel and headed for the airport. She wasn't at all sure she would be able to switch her flight, but managed to do so without difficulty.

Once on the plane, she wondered if she should have called Wilson to let him know she would be back early, then decided it might be nice to surprise him. He'd told her he was staying with House on Wednesday night. She'd watched him marinating beef to take and cook, but she didn't think he had made any plans for Thursday evening. He should just be home as usual, and he'd find her there.

Back in Jersey, she headed for her own apartment to dump her conference gear, stuffed overnight things in a backpack, and headed for Wilson's place to arrive before he got home from work. By this time she was really very tired, and when she got there, she lay down in the bedroom for a few minutes, and fell sound asleep.

* * *

When she woke up, it was dark and she was disorientated. She could see a shaft of light through an open door, hear muffled conversation in the background, and had no idea where she was or who was talking. She sat up and tried to get her bearings.

Gradually she remembered where she was; Wilson's place. She got up and stumbled toward the bedroom door, which was slightly ajar, and peered through the crack.

House and Wilson were in the living room, playing a racing car game on PlayStation, sitting close together on the couch, uttering occasional yelps as cars drove off the road and crashed spectacularly. They obviously hadn't realized she was there.

Jean knew she should just walk out and say _hello_. Wilson would be pleased to see her. House might not be pleased, but she could just leave and go home, or he would leave, or perhaps they could all hang out, which would be nice. They hadn't all hung out together much since that dinner at Cuddy's....

But then she stopped with her hand on the door. Actually, this was the chance she'd wanted to really watch House and Wilson interacting, as she'd seen at Cuddy's. In fact, it was better than that. It was her chance to see what they were like when she wasn't there. How often did that happen?

So she sat cautiously down by the bedroom door, listening intently, and watching as much as she could see--which wasn't much. They were sitting on Wilson's couch facing away from her, and she could only see the backs of their heads over the top of the sofa. She could see the TV screen to one side.

Also, she could hear everything they said--which was mostly expletives, as they played the game.

"Fuck. _Fuck_!" House roared as his car ran headlong into a wall and exploded. "You can't do that!"

"Can and did!" Wilson punched the air.

"Lucky is what I call it." And House reached over and tousled Wilson's hair.

Wilson reached back, and patted House playfully on the shoulder. "Again?"

"You're really asking to get your ass kicked this time," House warned.

"Your ass is mine, House," Wilson responded.

The game resumed, and this time House won, to much indignant protest and a call for best of three.

Jean realized gradually that this very familiar banter, that they might engage with in public, was a little different in private. It was rather like...well, she couldn't think of a better description than _flirting_. Their voices were teasing, suggestive. They were sitting closer, they actually touched, exchanging gruff pushes and shoves along with the mutual insults. She was staggered by this degree of intimacy. She wasn't sure what it all meant.

It suddenly became all too clear. They finished with the PlayStation, and both men stood up, Wilson generally stretching his legs and his arms, House carefully moving his bad leg around; it had clearly gotten stiff while sitting down for an extended period. Jean could see them reasonably well now, though they still had their backs to her.

"You practice far too much on this thing," Wilson complained, referring to the PlayStation.

"You've been practicing too," House countered. "You're much more skillful with that left hand of yours than you used to be." He leered. "Or is that from another kind of practice?"

"Like if I was jerking off all day I'd be able to do what I did last night?" Wilson replied.

And Wilson reached up, cradled his hand round the back of House's head, and kissed House on the mouth.

_What the hell?!_ Jean sat frozen.

House responded, leaning into Wilson, House dipping his head and taking Wilson's lower lip into his mouth, before kissing him deeply. It seemed to go on forever. She saw Wilson's fingers flicker through House's hair, House arching a hand to cup Wilson's jaw.

Then House pulled back, saying, "Didn't you get enough of me last night?" He reached out to ruffle Wilson's hair. "I'd have thought _that _would be enough to keep you going for a loooong time."

"Mmmm." Wilson breathed deeply and stepped backwards.

"Let's get take-out," House said breezily, and moved away. "Got any menus?"

Jean was utterly torn between horror at her discovery, dismay and anger at Wilson's betrayal, and an absolute fascination at House and Wilson's relationship.

She was so distracted she barely listened at all as they ordered Chinese, put on the TV to watch a Monster Truck rally, ate the food when it arrived, and carried on watching the Monster Trucks. She just sat by the bedroom door, hardly worrying any more if she was found out. She was so full of questions she could hardly breathe.

Hours later, Jean broke from her trance, looked at her watch and realized it had been quiet for some time. The TV was on, but playing softly. Neither House or Wilson had said anything for at least the last thirty minutes. Nor could she hear any other noise from either of them. She could see the back of House's head over the top of the couch, but Wilson was slumped down too far for her to see. She decided if she was going to leave it was now or never; she gathered up her bag, and sneaked out of the bedroom.

As she tiptoed past the couch, she looked at them and saw House sitting with his eyes shut, Wilson lying down with his head resting in House's lap. Wilson was obviously sound asleep. She paused, looking at them, drinking the picture in.

Through her conflict, one thought came shining through; actually, they looked adorable together. They really did.

Suddenly House opened his eyes and looked straight at her.

Jean stood petrified, like a rabbit caught in headlights.

Blue beams stared at her, then swiveled in the direction of the front door, then toward the bedroom door. She watched him compute that she was walking from the bedroom toward the front door, and not the other way round.

Jean suddenly panicked, turned, and fled out of the front door, shutting it behind her quickly but as quietly as possible. She half-ran along the corridor to the door leading out onto the street. Safely outside, she slumped down to sit on the doorstep, head in hands, feeling utterly humiliated.

A slow agonizing whine of a tune twisted its way into her head, as if someone had turned a wrench to lever it in. _Isn't it rich? Are we a pair? Me here at last on the ground, You in mid-air...._

_"Send in the clowns," _she whispered.

* * *

After a few moments, the door opened behind her, and House came outside. He was alone, and she deduced that he had managed to leave Wilson still asleep on the sofa. House eased himself down to sit on the stoop next to her, and laid his cane flat on the ground.

"Don't judge Wilson," was the first thing he said.

Jean simply looked at him, unable to speak, and not knowing what on earth to say.

After a moment, he asked, "Were you in the bedroom all evening?"

Jean felt she had to explain, opened her mouth, and unexpectedly, words came pouring out. "Yes, I came back a day early. I thought I'd surprise him. I fell asleep. When I woke up you were both there, playing PlayStation. I wanted to hear what you said to each other, how you acted when I wasn't there."

She saw House frowning. She guessed he was replaying the evening's events and conversations in his head, figuring what she must have seen.

She swallowed back tears. She would not cry in front of House, of all people. "I saw you kiss."

He looked sharply at her. "Then you'll know that's _all _that happened."

"Tonight, sure. But last night?..."

House was silent for a few moments, obviously recalling the conversation she had heard, then sighed. For a second she thought he was just going to get up and walk away. But instead he said, "Me and Wilson, we've known each other for more than twenty years. We've always fooled around."

"Really?" she whispered, astounded.

"Yes. I guess you could call us fuckbuddies." Jean winced at the term. House carried on talking. "It doesn't threaten you. It doesn't _need _to threaten you. I know it sounds crazy, but it's not. Wilson's been through three wives, and I lived with Stacy for five years. It made no difference then. It doesn't have to make any difference now."

"Why are you telling me this?" Jean was hardly able to believe what House was saying, still less that he was talking about it.

"Because I don't want you to break up with Wilson," House said simply. "Stupid though this may sound, you're good for him, and what's good for Wilson is good for me. And you may not believe this, but I really have been doing my damndest not to get in the way between you."

There was silence for a few moments.

"I need to think," Jean said, eventually. "Please don't tell Wilson about this."

House nodded.

Jean stood up and left. The whiny tune restarted in her head: _Don't you love farce? My fault, I fear. I thought that you'd want what I want. Sorry, my dear. _

_But where are the clowns? Quick, send in the clowns...._

"Don't bother, they're here," she murmured. She glanced back as she walked away, and saw House getting up and going back into Wilson's apartment building.

* * *

Next day, Jean met Wilson in the hospital and it was as if the previous night had all been a dream. She would have never guessed that anything had happened if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes.

She explained to him that she had come back a day early, but said she had just gone home and crashed.

"You should've come over," he said. He was charming, nice, considerate. "Or called, I'd have come to your place."

In fact, Jean thought, on the surface he was perfect. He was a gentleman. He opened doors. He cooked, he cleaned. He listened when she talked, really listened, took an interest in her work, her interests. And he cared. He'd seen through her tough facade when she'd told him about Professor Bastard, and let her crumple in his arms.

He was a good kisser. He was very good in bed--she had always thought whatever problem the three wives had had, it couldn't have been the sex. (Now, she also wondered what House's influence was). He was a doctor with a top job in a good hospital. He was very cute. She was the envy of all her friends.

_And yet._.. she now knew he had a whole other side to him she just hadn't seen. Or had only seen the very merest hints of. He and House must have been incredibly careful all these years! Of course there had been the wives and Stacy to blur the picture. Had any of them suspected, found out even? Was that why they had all left?...

Once the initial shock had passed, and once she had seen Wilson again in persona as Handsome Doctor James, Jean realized to her surprise that she didn't mind nearly as much as she might have thought she would. She had a residual bitter feeling which she knew to be a mixture of jealousy and betrayal; it didn't pass, but it was slight.

It was nothing like she had felt when abandoned by Professor Bastard back in New York. And she knew it was nothing like the fury she would have felt if she had caught Wilson with another woman.

This realization disturbed her for a while, and then she started to get used to her reaction. A tiny part of her which she barely dared to acknowledge knew that she found it exciting. A side of her that she had not previously been aware of came to the fore.

* * *

A few days later, she ran into House for the first time since what she now thought of as _Doorstep Night_.

She was going to meet Wilson in his office, and as the hospital elevator opened on the right floor, she found House and his three minions on the other side. They were all waiting to get in the elevator, but House stopped dead when he saw her. She stepped out, his staff got in, and the doors shut behind them. Jean was amused to catch a look of surprise on Cameron's face as she realized House wasn't with them after all.

Jean started to walk toward Wilson's office, and House fell into step next to her, tapping his cane. She reflected again on how easily House and Wilson walked next to each other. By contrast she felt awkward, and didn't know how fast a pace to take.

"So I'm guessing you never talked to Wilson about... our _conversation _last week," House said, obviously feeling his way.

"On the doorstep?" Jean said breezily, as if there might be many possible conversations House was referring to. "No. I'm not going to, either."

House peered at her as they walked. "And...you're still going out with him?"

"Oh yes," Jean said, as if surprised at the idea they might not.

House looked as if he was hating having to ask all the questions, but couldn't help himself. "And...it makes no difference? What you saw, and heard?"

"I guess I figured you were right. It doesn't have to change anything," Jean replied. They reached Wilson's office door and stopped outside.

House looked at her, blue eyes searching. "Then you're cool with it?"

"I suppose I must be," she said.

House's face was impassive for a minute, then unexpectedly broke into a craggy smile. "You... you..." Words seemed to fail him for a few seconds. "You never cease to surprise me." And he walked off back toward his office.

Jean took that as the enormous compliment it was.


	5. Chapter 5: The Ornamental Butterfly

**Chapter 5**** : The ornamental butterfly **

Princeton Plainsboro was throwing a thank you party for its donors. It was a chance for the donors to meet and mingle with the hard-working doctors they helped pay for, while sipping sponsored champagne and perhaps participating in the charity poker tournament.

The poker tournament appeared to be there mainly to bribe the doctors to attend, as far as Jean could see. At least, she was sure Wilson would have attended anyway, but the prospect of poker made him positively enthusiastic about it.

"I need to play nice to some benefactors first, strict orders from Cuddy, hope you don't mind," Wilson said as they arrived at the hospital.

"Of course not," Jean assured him.

"You look beautiful in that dress," he added, with a sudden, adoring smile. She was wearing a long dark blue velvet dress that clung to her hips and flared out at the ankles. It was fun, getting to dress up for a change.

"Not as beautiful as you," she replied with a laugh. Wilson looked superb in his tux, as if he was made for black tie.

"_I feel pretty_," he hummed, with a wink, and she grinned back and took his arm. They looked good together, she knew.

The first donor they encountered was a tall, overweight, well-dressed man, whom Wilson greeted warmly as Mr. Weloff. The name amused Jean greatly. She stifled her grin as she was introduced to him and his wife, who was equally tall but only about a quarter as wide.

"Jean, how lovely to meet you," Mrs. Weloff drawled. "Love your dress, who is it?"

The _who _rather startled Jean, but she managed to laugh an answer, tell Mrs. Weloff she loved her dress too, and hold a conversation for a minute or two. until she felt Wilson's hand on her elbow steering her away as he made a polite excuse.

The pattern was repeated as they circulated around the hall, Wilson effortlessly networking the big benefactors on Cuddy's behalf, Jean playing the charming girlfriend part as if she'd been born to it. She was proud to be there as the girlfriend of Dr. Wilson, and all the more so as it was the kind of public experience Jean had never had with her ex--Professor Bastard, as House called him. Professor Bastard always been with his wife at university social occasions. Jean had viewed them together from afar, marveling how they managed to appear such a model couple when their marriage underneath was dead and decaying...of course, now she knew the state of their marriage had been grossly misrepresented.

Now she was the one being legitimately shown off, there for all to see by Wilson's side. She found herself humming _If My Friends Could See Me Now _as they strolled across the room. It was nice, but she started to find it also rather stultifying. Nobody was really interested in her for herself, even if they asked polite questions. Jean felt almost ornamental. As if she was some kind of attractive butterfly accessory, attached to Wilson's arm.

In the distance, she spotted House stalking around the room looking scruffy and menacing even in black tie. He scrubbed up rather well, she thought. She also noticed that he didn't seem to be talking to any donors.

The poker tournament began, and after a couple of rounds where many poker novices were swiftly eliminated, House and Wilson were put on the same table. Cuddy was still in the tournament too, but at a different table.

Jean wanted to stand and watch House and Wilson play, sure that their interaction would be fantastic, but quickly found this impossible. There were too many people circulating, coming up to chat, talking to her about Wilson. She was occupied for a long time by Brown from oncology, whom she had met a couple of times on her research visits to the hospital, and his incredibly boring wife.

Then two of House's staff drifted up to her. Jean had met Chase and Cameron a few times during her project, but always as professional doctors in their white coats. They looked very different now, Cameron stunning in a low-cut red gown, and Chase handsome in his tux, apparently rather drunk. At least, he seemed to be staggering slightly when he walked.

Close up, she noticed they were both wearing name badges: Cameron's said_ Dr. Allison House _and Chase's said_ Dr. Robert House_.

"Hey," she greeted them. "What's with the badges?"

Cameron laughed a little nervously and Chase shook his head.

"Cuddy told House he could only come to the party and play in the poker tournament if he schmoozed some donors, and gave her a list of their names to prove it," Chase explained. "And, to cut a long story short, us and Foreman lost a bet with House, and now we all have to pretend to be the famous Dr. House, do some schmoozing, and get him a list of donors."

Jean was amused. "Don't people know what House looks like?"

"No, they don't," Cameron said, with a little uplift of a palm to show how surprising this was. "Except for the ones who've met him on a case, and we know to avoid them. Everyone else just knows Princeton Plainsboro has a famous diagnostician called Dr. House."

"One guy said he'd heard I had a bad leg. So I limped a bit and told him some days were better than others," Chase said blithely, and Jean laughed, realizing there was a reason for Chase's staggering gait after all. "Also, some people have been a bit surprised to find House is Australian."

"Not as surprised as the ones who've found he's a woman!" Cameron capped him. "But they don't dare say that. They swallow their surprise and start asking about cases."

It was clearly a roller-coaster ride working for House, Jean decided. She asked, "What happens when they tell Cuddy later how nice it was to meet Dr. Allison House?"

Cameron's eyes sparkled a little at the words _Allison House_. "Oh, Cuddy will find out, and House will get into trouble. But not until he's had his fun. And played his poker."

At that moment Dr. Foreman stomped up to join them, his eyes wide with annoyance. "I've had it with this. I've absolutely had it." He pulled off his _Dr. Eric House_ badge. "House can stick his bet and his stupid poker game up his ass."

"How many names have you got?" Cameron asked.

"One. One humiliation too many." Foreman stuck the badge in a pocket. "I'm going to get a beer and tell someone my real name for once."

He stalked away. Cameron and Chase looked at each other, and Chase said, "I think we managed enough names between us to placate Cuddy. We can stop now."

"I suppose so." Cameron took off her badge rather regretfully. Jean guessed that Cameron had rather enjoyed being Allison House.

"So, Jean," Cameron changed the subject. "How long have you been going out with Dr. Wilson now? It must be six months, nearly?"

Jean nodded; Cameron obviously knew perfectly well.

"You must get on very well with House," Cameron carried on. "I mean, if you're dating Wilson, then you must see an awful lot of House, socially I mean?"

Jean saw a green-eyed monster lurking beneath the question, and understood in a flash. Cameron would like to be socializing with House, too. Jean wondered for a few delicious seconds what on earth Cameron would say if she knew the true extent of House and Wilson's relationship, then hastened to reassure.

"House? Well, I've seen him around the hospital of course, but not socially, not at all. In fact, I could count the number of times the three of us have been together on one hand." This was almost true. "I mean, House doesn't like socializing with anyone but Wilson, does he?"

Cameron looked a little reassured. "No, he doesn't."

Chase, apparently just drunk enough to be indiscreet, chimed in, "But the thing is, usually the minute Wilson gives anyone else any attention at all, House comes down on it like a ton of bricks."

"Chase!" Cameron chided him.

"Oh come on, we've seen it happen over and over." Chase waved an arm around the room. "Basically, if you're dating Wilson you're dating House too. For it to last six months, House must actually like you."

"Chase!" Cameron said again, angry this time.

"No no, House just tolerates me really. For Wilson's sake," Jean said in a confiding tone. Cameron looked reassured again.

Cameron wanted to be reassured, Jean realized. She couldn't have House, but she still wanted to be the most important woman in his life. Jean had no intention of giving any indication to the contrary, although she felt a certain smugness in her knowledge. Cameron might see a lot more of House than she did, and probably knew him a lot better as a person, but Jean knew about a side of his life that Cameron had no idea about.

"Game's about to finish. Looks like Wilson's got the upper hand! Let's get out of here," Chase said suddenly. Jean looked around at the poker table. Sure enough, House was glowering and Wilson punching the air, with a huge grin on his face.

Cameron and Chase walked swiftly away, Chase putting on an exaggerated limp. Cameron smiled at Jean as she left. Jean thought it was genuine.

Next minute Jean was joined by a disgusted looking House and a jubilant Wilson.

"Can't believe you had that queen," House was grumbling. "I could have sworn the pharmacology guy had it."

"No way. The poker gods have abandoned you for tonight, House." Wilson pulled on an oversized cigar.

"I think Dr. Wilson deserves a real competitor, don't you?" a new voice cut in, and it was Cuddy, victor of the other table, resplendent in a deep purple dress that could not have been any more low-cut.

"Yeah, let Cuddy whip your ass. Like I would've done if it wasn't for that last damned card," House said bitterly.

"We'll see about that." Wilson was dragged back to the table, smiling apologetically back at Jean.

Jean waved and smiled back, and turned towards House, who was snatching a glass of champagne off a passing waiter's tray. She noticed he was wearing a name badge that said _Dr. Gregory Chase_.

"Hello, Dr. Chase," she said. "You didn't choose to be Cameron? Or Foreman?"

House grinned, showing white incisor teeth rather like fangs. "I went for the prettiest one."

Jean thought how disappointed Cameron must have been that he had foregone the pleasure of being _Dr. Gregory Cameron_, and smiled to herself.

"So, have my staff been filling your head with diagnostic gossip?" House asked, and drained half the glass.

"If you were noticing who I was talking to, rather than concentrating on the game, no wonder you lost," Jean remarked. House glared at her. She took the advantage. "Actually, I think you may be in imminent danger of losing your Mr. Nasty image."

House furrowed his brows, apparently trying to project a Mr. Nasty persona, and growled, "What do you mean?"

"Cameron and Chase seem to think you must actually like me," Jean explained. "Or you wouldn't have put up with me going out with Wilson this long."

House looked thunderstruck, then cried, "Blasphemy!"

Jean carried on blithely, "I did tell them they were wrong, that you only barely tolerate me. But all the same, as they're watching us across the room right now, it would be a really good time for you to say something really hurtful and unpleasant so I go off in tears."

House stared at her, and the corners of his mouth twitched. "_This_ is why I tolerate you."

"No, don't smile, you're giving them the wrong impression!" she said.

"You know, you should learn how to play poker." House swirled the drink around his glass. "Get Wilson to teach you. You'd be good at it, because you like watching people. You love to watch, right? And listen. Is that how you get your kicks?"

Jean was taken aback, and she knew it showed on her face. House hadn't said anything about their conversation on Wilson's doorstep, not since she had told him it was _cool _at the hospital afterwards. She didn't feel it was fair to bring it up now, here.

But House of course, was not a fair person. He seized on a perceived weakness and started pushing. "Yes, I'd say you're definitely a voyeur. I've seen you watching... everybody." He arched an eyebrow and dipped his voice. "Did the sight of me kissing Wilson in his apartment turn you on?"

Jean recovered quickly. She had to, or she would end up like Cameron and Chase, fleeing to the other side of the room at a hint of trouble. Also, this was the chance of a lifetime. She'd been so full of questions, and now it looked like House might actually be willing to talk.

But...she had to be daring. She had to provoke a response out of him.

She waited for him to raise the champagne glass to his lips, and said, "Well, now I'm _sure_ you want me to watch you and Wilson fucking."

House choked on his drink, to her great satisfaction.

"Why else would you bring this up?" she added, as he wiped champagne bubbles from his nose. "The thought must really turn _you _on. Perhaps it's happened before." Big question coming up. "Perhaps...Stacy used to watch the two of you."

"No," House said emphatically, a gut reaction, which she instinctively believed. "I told you, in twenty years, Wilson and me, we've had plenty of...fallow periods."

"Meaning?...."

"Times when we haven't fucked around." Beat. "Much. The longest was when Stacy was around. She never knew about us, because there wasn't anything to know, then."

Jean was skeptical and showed it. "How can she not have known? You lived with her for five years!"

"And we did very little during those years," House countered. "Wilson will tell you I can be ridiculously monogamous when I want to be."

Jean hoped to hear a bit more about House and Stacy, but House seemed to realize he was saying rather a lot about himself, and skillfully steered the conversation the other way. "Wilson, on the other hand, has _always _had monogamy issues, with all his wives. Mind you, if you met them you might understand that. He's the master of blundering into marriage with the most grossly unsuitable women."

Jean was fascinated by this unexpected insight, and drank it in, not caring that House was avoiding talking about himself and Stacy by spilling the beans on Wilson. How often had she wondered about Wilson's three wives? She only knew what Wilson had told her, which was understandably not much and very one-sided.

"Grossly unsuitable how?" she prodded.

"Incredible prudes, all of them," House declared. "No way did they know about us, I don't think any of them would have comprehended such a thing. Julie, especially. How her and Wilson ever had sex I'll never know. It must have been missionary position only."

Jean stifled a grin and pressed on, eager to get her queries answered while House was apparently in a mood to do so. "So you and Wilson were, um, fuckbuddies while he was married? All three times?"

"Don't pin this on _me_. I did tell him, be faithful to them, every time. But he never could keep it in his pants. Not just with me, either. When Wilson wants something, it's not easy to refuse." House glugged champagne. "We fucked the night before Wilson married his first wife, you know."

Jean was appropriately shocked and House looked pleased to have shocked her. "Oh yes," he enlarged. "Wilson had serious cold feet the night before and nearly didn't go through with it. I was trying to be supportive and encouraging. Big mistake that was. But it went down well at the time." He leered at the words _went down_. "Funny, something very similar happened the second time. Not the third, though."

"Tell me about Julie," Jean urged, knowing how recent this divorce was compared to the others.

"Rebound fuck." House was contemptuous. "For both of them. Should've lasted a week, went way too far, she dragged him off to Vegas, the fool went along with it. She was terrified of being alone, wanted to marry a doctor for the status. Never gave a damn about Wilson. You know, I was best man at all three of Wilson's weddings--never again--but I only really regretted the last, because I always knew Julie was no good. I should've let Wilson's brother do it."

"I heard you don't get on," Jean prodded. She hadn't met any of Wilson's family, nor was he inclined to talk much about them, but she had gleaned that much.

"You could say that. Ever since he punched me on the nose at Wilson's first wedding," House said almost casually.

This was a splendid nugget of information, but Jean didn't follow it up, as she rather thought Wilson would tell her more about that if she asked. She wanted to stick to what she could only get from House.

"So, there have been women throughout your relationship," Jean hesitated, and asked the biggie. "Have there been other men, too?"

House was silent for a minute, and Jean thought, _he's going to lie to me_.

But when he spoke, it had an unexpected ring of truth. "I'm not going to tell you we're only gay for each other, 'cause it's not true. But I don't like labels, and I'm not pinning one on Wilson, either. Everything's more complicated than that."

Jean would have liked to have carried on talking in this vein all night, but the conversation was abruptly terminated by shouts of delight and groans emanating from the poker table. Cuddy had apparently defeated Wilson.

As the poker players stood up, House broke out of his unexpectedly communicative mood and said abruptly, "I'm not here to satisfy your titillation, I don't fucking well want to be spied on, and no, you watching me and Wilson fuck would _not_ turn me on. You _wish_." He turned away from her as Cuddy and Wilson approached.

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much," Jean hissed.

"That's a common misquote actually," House retorted, as Cuddy and Wilson reached them. "Go look it up."

"House," Cuddy said in a menacing tone. "Before our very distinguished and generous supporter Mr. Tyrone Jackson left just now, he came up to me and said he had no idea that the famous Dr. House was African-American. And congratulations, what a feather in the cap for Princeton Plainsboro! Have you _any_ idea how he came to have that impression?"

"Foreman may have delusions of grandeur," House drawled. "Is there a problem? 'Cause I saw Jackson handing you a check at the same time."

"He did," Cuddy admitted with a reluctant air. "But that's no excuse!"

"You dress like a whore, but you act the pimp. You got your money!" House threw up his hands. "What're you complaining about again?"

Cuddy folded her arms in front of her; House folded his, too. They appeared to be squaring up for a fight. Wilson caught Jean's eye and smiled. She took his hand and smiled back; they edged a little way away from House and Cuddy.

"I hope that wasn't too dull, watching the poker I mean," Wilson murmured to her. "I saw Brown and his wife collar you."

"No, it was fine," Jean hastened to reassure. "I had a good conversation with House. He said you should teach me poker, by the way. That might be fun, if you don't mind."

"Of course not. You know, I'm _so _glad you get on with House so well," Wilson said fervently. "Seriously. I never knew...it makes so much difference! To not have to worry about House all the time--" His eyes were large and adoring, and he squeezed her hand tight. "I love you, Jean."

It was the first time he'd said that to her. She stifled her surprise, and kissed him, hard; but she couldn't say it back.


	6. Chapter 6: Her Own Private Theater

**Chapter 6**** : Her Own Private Theater **

Micky's Diner was bustling with the dinner crowd, feasting on ribs, steak, and fries. It had been a good meal, House decided, brushing burger bun crumbs off his shirt. He leaned back in his chair, and belched loudly and contentedly.

"And on that note..." Wilson remarked, as Jean stood up, picked up her bag and edged out of the booth.

"Yeah, he's driving me away," Jean confirmed. "As far as the ladies' room, anyway. Back in a sec."

"You're looking particularly sickeningly doey-eyed tonight," House grumbled to Wilson, as Jean headed across the restaurant. "Fuck, I know, you think you're in love. Lighten up already."

"House," Wilson chided, but he was smiling gently. "She is great, though, isn't she?"

"Yeah, puppies and kittens spring from her every step," House snorted. He picked a salt shaker off the table and shook it experimentally.

"She _is _great, though," Wilson repeated. "And it's just amazing that we can all go out like this together."

House had lightened up about this. They now went out for dinner or drinks maybe once, maybe twice a week. "Well, gotta eat, and you seem to be as willing to pay for three of us as two."

Wilson continued to wax lyrical about Jean for a few minutes. House tuned him out, concentrating instead on making an attractive salt pyramid pattern on the tablecloth.

He tuned in again when Wilson's tone changed. "....bit worried, though."

"Oh?" House decided to show his modicum of interest.

"She's coming to the end of her postdoc," Wilson confided, dropping his voice, although nobody could possibly have heard above the diner hubbub. "It's only a one year contract. She's looking for jobs already, she might leave Princeton."

"No opportunities in the Sociology faculty here?" House asked, idly sprinkling pepper.

"Her research project's almost finished. She could probably get another short-term contract for another project, but she's really after tenure," Wilson explained.

House mixed salt and pepper grains together, and mused on this. "She'll probably end up back in New York, won't she? That's only up the road. You can commute."

"She doesn't want to go back there. Not with Professor Bastard lurking there still," Wilson sighed, reaching across the table to swirl a finger in House's salt and pepper artwork. "She's thinking California, where her family is."

"Oh." Much more difficult to maintain a relationship over that distance. Hmph. House tried to figure out how he felt about Jean going off to live three thousand miles away.

He was surprised to find his gut reaction was _that sucks_. He then figured Wilson must feel the same, but worse. A lot worse. The guy thought he was in love, after all.

"That sucks, for you," House offered, careful to couch it that way. He dabbed a finger in the salt and pepper, scraping a nail against Wilson's knuckle, knowing Wilson would know it wasn't an accident.

"Yeah," Wilson mumbled, bumping his finger back against the pad of House's thumb.

House stared down at their hands, gently resting against each other on the Formica tabletop, and realized that Jean had been in the ladies' room rather a long time. He glanced over his shoulder, and there she was, hovering some way away at the side of the room. When she saw he'd spotted her, she headed back toward them. House didn't say anything as she rejoined them, but regarded her through narrow eyes. She ignored him haughtily.

This, House mulled, was the third time he'd noticed her doing this. She was lingering to watch him and Wilson together, even just for a minute or two. This voyeuristic shit was giving him the creeps.

* * *

He tried to talk about it to Wilson one evening, when they'd both been working late. House decided to drop by Wilson's office on his way out. He found Wilson leaning back in his desk chair, pleased at having finished a piece of lengthy paperwork, and when House dropped onto the couch and unzipped his fly, Wilson got up and joined him readily.

One very satisfying handjob later, House moved to reciprocate, reaching for Wilson's crotch, but instead of undoing his belt, Wilson took House's hand and moved it smoothly away.

"I'm about to go around to Jean's," he said. "I don't want to be drained before I get there."

"What, I'm a vampire now?" House teased. "You can't get it up twice in one evening? Some stud you are."

Wilson mimicked having fangs with his index fingers, then stood up to go. House didn't particularly mind, but as he watched Wilson putting his coat on he thought about how weird it was that Jean _knew_ they did this. He remembered the conversation he'd had with her at the donor party, and wondered whether she would have liked to have seen what they had just done.

"Wilson," he said, deliberately casual and looking at the ceiling. "What do you think Jean would say if she'd seen us just now?"

Wilson froze in the middle of knotting his muffler. "House. Don't. Don't even joke about it."

"I just wondered," House said innocently. "Maybe she wouldn't mind. Maybe she'd enjoy--"

"HOUSE." Wilson cut him off. "NO. Don't you dare. Don't you dare do anything. Say anything. Things are great the way they are now. I can't imagine it could be any better. Don't you dare jeopardize it by even hinting. I mean it."

House opened his mouth to reply but Wilson had already left, banging the door behind him. House shrugged and gave up. He had tried.

House struggled inwardly for a while, but despite his head telling him this was stupid, found himself drawn to the idea.

* * *

Jean loved watching House and Wilson together. Just in daily life, meeting up to see them talk, walk, steal food, play games, watch TV. Sometimes she lurked a while outside if she could see them through the bar or restaurant window, before joining them. She could see little differences if they didn't know she was around, increased closeness.

And, House knew what she was doing, but so what. So long as he didn't mention it to Wilson. And even if he did, she could laugh it off, _yeah, I'm a bit of a stalker._ After all, it wasn't like she'd seen anything private, not since Doorstep Night.

All that changed rather suddenly.

The call from House one evening was unexpected. Jean was in the office with a stack of student papers, preparing for a late night. She exchanged a friendly phone call about eight PM with Wilson, and told him she'd probably need a few more hours, she'd see him tomorrow. Wilson said he was still working too and would probably hang out with House afterward.

"Have a good evening then, see you tomorrow," said Jean with affection, and hung up.

An hour later, her phone rang, and it was House. "What are your plans for this evening?"

Jean slipped her glasses off and rubbed her eyes. "Um—marking papers."

"That can wait. Come to my office, don't tell Wilson you're coming, and make sure he doesn't see you on the way in."

So Jean found herself summoned. It was mysterious, but she was willing to give House his head, at least until she figured out what he was up to.

Wilson's office door was shut when she walked past. She found House waiting in the conference room adjacent to his office, and went inside.

"Sit there." House indicated the chair furthest away from the door, near the coffee machine. "Wilson'll be along in a moment. Sit down, shut up, and enjoy the show."

She obeyed, not understanding, but sufficiently curious to keep playing along. She started humming _Another Openin', Another Show_, then hastily shushed herself.

House tweaked the blinds shut over the corridor window, taking care to check they were completely closed. Apparently satisfied, he clicked the lights off, plunging the conference room into darkness. He then went into his office and closed the blinds there, too.

Suddenly Jean realized what House was getting at. The conference room was pitch black. With the blinds down along the corridor side of both House's office and the conference room, nobody outside could see in at all; it might as well have been a solid wall.

But the glass _between_ the office and conference room allowed a view from one to the other. And as the office was lit, and the conference room was not, Jean was practically invisible in the corner of the conference room, while House was clearly visible to her. It was like sitting in her own private theater, with a play being performed down the end of the room. She had a clear view into everything happening in House's office.

House was stalking around the room, apparently edgy, looking at books on shelves, picking up trinkets on his desk and putting them down again.

Then the door into House's office opened, and a familiar figure stepped inside. She couldn't hear him speak through the glass wall, but she clearly saw him mouth a familiar, "Hey."

"Hey," she watched House reply, as Wilson dropped into the yellow easy chair and put his coat and briefcase down on the floor.

Jean felt that surely, _surely_, Wilson would look around and see her any second. But he didn't even glance in her direction. She edged her chair sideways a little, moving behind the whiteboard, and felt a little better. She could peek around to see into House's office, but they'd have to be looking really hard to spot her.

House and Wilson conversed for a few minutes, and Jean wished heartily that she could lip-read. But she could read the body language without any problem. Wilson sprawled on the yellow chair, smiling, laughing, arms spread wide, legs askew--crotch on display. House perched on his desk, also smiling (and he smiled so rarely in public), neck arched, head slightly on one side, leaning forward in Wilson's direction.

Then Wilson stood up and moved toward House, and Jean felt a thrill run through her body.

House said something and gestured with his hands, and Wilson took a diversion across the room to pop the lock on the door into the corridor. He then stepped sideways to do the same to the door into the conference room, and Jean caught her breath, fearful that she would be seen. But no; Wilson barely glanced through the glass at all, merely clicking the lock shut and then turning back toward House.

House stayed where he was, perched on the edge of the desk; taking the weight off his bad leg, Jean assumed. Wilson came right up to him, and they kissed, and Jean felt her own mouth open involuntarily as she watched them. Soft, gentle, tender, and then more--deeper, passionate, and then downright hungry.

She felt a lump in her throat as Wilson ran his hands up and down House's chest, plucking open shirt buttons. Then his hand moved to House's crotch and suddenly Jean wasn't at all sure if she could cope with this or not. Had she bitten off more than she could chew?--could she really stand to watch her boyfriend do _this _with another man?

That question was swiftly answered, as she closed her eyes but immediately opened them again, afraid to miss a thing. Wilson undoing House's fly, sliding in a hand, and suddenly she forgot how to breathe as Wilson dropped to his knees on the floor, yanking House's pants and boxers down as he did so.

This was _un-fucking-believable_! She gasped, then stuffed a fist in her mouth to stop herself making any sound, watching agog as Wilson freed House's cock from his pants, and pretty near swallowed it whole.

House threw his head back, eyes closed, mouth open, in apparent frozen ecstasy; Jean watched his hands scrabble and clutch at Wilson's hair, and she had a vague sense of déjà vu, as Wilson tended to do that to her. It wasn't like watching porn, exactly; more like a sex scene on HBO. She could see bare flesh, movement, bodies jolting and Wilson's head rutting back and forth.

She glimpsed a small area of House's scarred thigh, purplish in the light, and felt both amazed and privileged. She then stared riveted at the side view of his hip and buttock; she couldn't believe it. She could _not_ believe House was doing this, knowing that she was next door. Maybe he had forgotten, in the heat of the moment? Perhaps the prospect of orgasm had deleted his brain temporarily? Or was her presence adding to _his _excitement? Anyway, he was doing it and she would not have missed it for the world.

House abruptly pulled backwards, and Jean got a proper view of his cock, long and red and hard. Wilson jerked backwards a little as if perhaps expecting release, then clambered to his feet when it didn't come. House's right hand curled around the back of Wilson's head, pulling him close, the other reaching downwards, pulling Wilson's own pants down, and then pressing his groin forward to rock up against Wilson's crotch.

Jean gulped again, her mind grasping for the word--frottage? It was difficult to see anything, they were so close together, but she got brief glimpses of their two cocks, slipping and sliding up against each other, Wilson's erection quickly matching House's. House was peeling Wilson's shirt away, Wilson shrugging it off his shoulders. The two men locked mouths briefly, then moved apart; Wilson with his head bent, planting kisses across House's face, neck, shoulders; House with his mouth open, fondling Wilson's chest, biceps, back.

House came first, and Jean could tell because his hips and upper body jolted madly, his head seemed about to fall off his shoulders. Wilson pressed up close against him, then climaxed himself a few seconds later, with a final, long rub skating across House's crotch.

Nothing happened for a minute or two; House stayed perched on the desk, something of a glazed leer on his face, Wilson's face was buried in House's shoulder.

Then House shifted position and Wilson moved reluctantly, and things became all businesslike. Clothes were pulled back on, conversation resumed, coats were donned and bags picked up, and they left House's office together.

Jean sat for a lengthy period in the dark, not wanting to risk running into either House or Wilson inside the hospital. She pictured them waiting a long time for the elevator, lingering downstairs, stopping for a chat with the night janitor, or the nurse at reception. When enough time had passed to allow for many such eventualities, she stood up, stretching out the cramps that had developed from sitting still too long, then crept cautiously out of the room.

* * *

Jean took a long time to fall asleep that night, and when she did she replayed House and Wilson in her dream, from all the angles she hadn't been able to see from her corner.

She met Wilson the next day for coffee at Princeton Plainsboro, and marveled at how normal everything was. Wilson was pleasant and charming, and commiserated with her for not finishing all the marking she'd intended to do the previous evening (she didn't explain why not, of course). She went away with her head whirling, and wondered if there was any chance he'd been in on it with House? If so he was playing things really, _really_, cool.

She saw House a couple of days later, having a drink with Wilson in the bar across the street from the hospital. She joined them, and Wilson greeted her with a kiss and dutifully went off to get another round of drinks for them all.

Jean knew she might not get another chance to talk to House on their own for a while and opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated, and he preempted her.

"It never happened," he said, his face like granite.

She pondered that for a second, then asked the only question that really mattered. "Wilson doesn't know?"

"Wilson doesn't know, and if he ever did, he might just never speak to me or you again. So, it never happened," House said with finality, and that was that.

Jean continued to mull things over the next few days as she also pondered her future. Was the thrill of being in on the House-Wilson relationship _really _worth it? When she was coming to the last few weeks of her contract at Princeton? She would soon be out of a job. Furthermore, her apartment was also on a yearly lease and with unemployment beckoning, she didn't feel able to renew it, so homelessness was also pending.

She had wasted years of her life waiting for Professor Bastard, and he'd let her down.

She thought she did love Wilson, and she knew that he loved her, but he already had a significant other. Like the Professor, just less public. She didn't want to make the same mistake again.

* * *

She soon had news of her own for Wilson.

"I've been asked to give a paper at a conference in Berkeley," Jean explained, beaming. "It's a great honor! There will be some top people there in my field, and I've never been an invited speaker at a conference before."

What she didn't say was that she'd been networking like mad to get to this point, and rather hoped that the conference would lead to a job offer.

"Congratulations!" Wilson was warm and effusive. "Hey, I've never been to Berkeley. Maybe I could come out with you."

"We could maybe make a little vacation out of it?" Jean suggested, liking this idea. They had never been on vacation together, in fact she hadn't been on vacation since moving to Princeton.

A schedule was soon arranged. Wilson had also apparently not taken any vacation time for a long while, and Cuddy was only too pleased to give him a few days off, no problem. They would fly out Thursday, hire a car, Wilson would spend a day chilling by himself while Jean gave her paper at the conference on Friday, and they would then drive off for a long weekend sightseeing in Yosemite afterward. It sounded great. It sounded awesome.

House didn't kick up a fuss beyond a mild grumble, not that Jean heard about, anyway. Pleased about that, she made excuses about being busy writing her paper the night before they went away.

"You go around to House's place," she urged Wilson.

Wilson prevaricated a bit, then did so.

She hoped they had a nice evening together. She sat at her desk, and alternatively worked on her paper and imagined Wilson working on House.

* * *

Wilson and Jean met up and flew out to San Francisco the next day, picked up a rental car, drove to Berkeley, and found their hotel. They were both tired when they got there, and crashed early in the evening.

It was early the next morning when the call came through. Jean was already up, sitting at the desk in their hotel room with her glasses on, reading through her conference paper, delivering it in her head. Wilson was still asleep, but the phone roused him as it was his cell ringing, on the nightstand right by his head. Jean watched as he groaned and stuck a reluctant arm out from the covers to grab the handset.

"Wilson," he said groggily.

Jean mused on how hard it was for doctors, being on call even when they weren't. She knew Wilson had cleared his schedule for their weekend away, seen all the patients he'd needed to see... and yet, if something came up he would want to know, would want to be able to give advice over the phone. She hoped it wouldn't affect their vacation--

"What?" Wilson said, his voice now clear, ringing sharply in the room. "Cuddy, _what?"_

Cuddy? It must be important. And suddenly Jean realized this news, whatever it was, was major. Wilson, rising to sit up in bed, had gone absolutely white. The blood seemed to have drained from all his skin except his knuckles, red from where they were clutching the phone.

It was House, of course, Jean knew that immediately. No-one else would provoke such a reaction. She tried to guess what was happening from Wilson's side of the conversation, but couldn't make head or tail of it.

A minute later, Wilson ended the call, dropped the phone on the bed, and looked at her with huge brown eyes and a frozen expression on his face.

"House has been shot. This morning. He was in his office, a man with a gun came in, and shot him!" Wilson's voice rose in disbelief. "In front of his staff. I can't believe it!"

As he spoke he was getting up, picking up clothes, getting dressed. Jean took her spectacles off slowly and watched in amazed horror.

"Is... he badly hurt?" she asked, wondering if he might be dead but not quite daring to ask that.

"He was hit once in the abdomen and once in the neck. He's in surgery, Cuddy's put him in a dissociative coma." Wilson shook his head, apparently puzzled by that, as he stepped into pants and pulled them up. "I cannot fucking believe this. I can't--why--why does this _always _happen to me?"

Jean frowned, not understanding.

"His leg," Wilson amplified, plucking yesterday's T-shirt from an armchair. "The infarction. I wasn't there, I was on loan to Stanford in an exchange program. I suppose--I suppose I should be grateful Cuddy even fucking bothered to call me this time--it was three fucking days _last _time--"

He headed into the bathroom and slammed the door.

* * *

The vacation was a non-starter, of course. There was no question that Wilson would go back, there and then, straight to the airport and barely stopping to pack.

She didn't go with him. He didn't expect her to, assumed she would stay and give her conference paper. She assumed that too, but wondered if she should have offered to go back with him anyway. Hold his hand on the plane? Show that she cared?

But what would be the point of that? She'd practically become invisible to him the moment that phone call came in.

"I'll cancel our Yosemite trip," she said to Wilson as the airport cab pulled up outside the hotel. "I'll fly back tonight, or tomorrow if I can't get a flight tonight, alright?"

"Alright, see you later." Wilson barely air-kissed her on the cheek as he got into the cab.

She blotted House and Wilson from her mind, and went to the conference.


	7. Chapter 7: Endgame

**Chapter 7**** : Endgame **

Jean opened the door to House's hospital room with some trepidation.

She'd gotten back from Berkeley and arrived at Princeton Plainsboro to find Wilson anxious and bustling around, occupied in long conversations with Cuddy about the controversial medical treatment House had undergone. Jean had waited around for a while and been on the verge of going home, but then Wilson had encouraged her to go see House.

"He's awake and bored, already, of course," Wilson explained. "Go stop him climbing the walls and bursting his stitches."

She came into the room and was reassured to find House sitting up in bed and glaring at her. A large bandage was swathed around his neck, and he was wearing a hospital gown, but apart from that he looked just the same as he always did.

"Hey," he rasped as she approached, closing the door behind her. "You should be in Yosemite. I told Wilson, he's an idiot. Leaving his vacation like that. I'm fine."

"Yeah, just because someone put a couple of bullets in you, no reason to worry," Jean said, deadpan. She sat down next to the bed.

"I'm better than I was before," House insisted.

"The ketamine treatment? Has it worked?" Jean was tentative. Wilson and Cuddy had explained it to her, but neither of them seemed sure about how effective it would be.

"Meet my new pain-free leg." House patted the bedcovers over his right thigh. "Once these bullet wounds heal, I'll be running marathons, you'll see." He tipped his head to one side and looked her in the eye. "You went to your conference."

"Yeah," Jean admitted.

"Did you get offered the job?" House asked, his voice razor-sharp, and Jean couldn't help but gasp.

"What--you mean--"

"If you think it wasn't completely obvious that you were going to Berkeley to pursue a job, then you're a bigger idiot than I thought." House was scathing. "Even Wilson guessed. And then the stupid fucker devised his very own plan to give you an alternative."

Jean didn't understand. "An alternative?"

"He was going to propose to you."

"What?" Jean was completely caught by surprise. She slumped back into the chair. "He told you that?"

"No, but I knew it anyway, he was behaving exactly the same as he did the first three times."

Jean would have liked to ask what this meant, but House carried on, "I found the ring in his pocket the night before you left. I think he wanted to wait until you were under a giant sequoia or something, and then persuade you that you'd prefer _his _giant sequoia to tenure in Berkeley."

Fuck. _Fuck, fuck, fuck._ It rang absolutely true. It made perfect sense.

House waited, but when she didn't say anything, added, "He wants to keep you at Princeton, and he can't think of any other way of doing it. He's distracted right now, worrying about the ketamine treatment, but once he realizes I'm better than fine, he'll remember what he was going to do. He's still got the ring, after all. Are you going to Berkeley?"

Jean groaned and put her hands over her face. "They asked me to come back in a couple of weeks' time and meet the head of department, he's due back from sabbatical then. Don't know what he'll make of me, but I do really want the job."

"So you're not tempted by the sound of wedding bells instead," House observed.

"You think I should be?" Jean asked bitterly. "After everything that's happened, everything I've seen?"

House shrugged. "You should marry him."

This left Jean momentarily speechless. "Why? Why would you want me to do that?"

House flung his arms out in a wide gesture, and said in a robotic voice, "It's his best shot at happiness. You're good for him. If he's happy, that's good for me too. Wilson would be devastated if you break up and I'd have to pick up the pieces."

What meaningless trash was this? "Bullshit! What's in this for _you_?"

"What do you expect me to say?" House shouted. "He's never going to stop looking for the perfect relationship, and you _are_ good for him! And if he loses you now, he'll never find anyone like you ever again. You know more about _us_ than any other woman has ever known, and you're cool with it."

"Right, I'm so cool with it I can picture a lifetime ahead of me with my husband slipping off to cop a feel of his best friend," Jean spat back. "Forgive me, but when I was a little girl dreaming about my wedding day I never envisioned that bit."

House looked taken aback, as if realizing he had bitten off more than he could chew. "I still say you should accept. You think about it."

"You know what I told Berkeley I wanted my next study to be about?" she asked, and laughed. "I told them there were plenty of sociological studies on the doctor-patient relationship, and even the doctor-nurse relationship, but hardly anything on the doctor-doctor relationship. Consults, referrals, friendships, prescriptions. The morals, the ethics, the stresses and strains of work. The professional dimension but the personal, too. Lots of potential. They liked it. They loved it."

"Jesus Christ on a cracker!" House exclaimed. "_We're_ the inspiration for your job pitch?"

"Don't worry, you'll be anonymous in the case studies." Jean put a glint of black humor into her voice. As she stood up to go, she asked, "You really think I should become Wilson Wife Number Four?"

"Oh come on. There's no comparison with one, two and three. You're worth ten times more than all of them put together." House took a deep breath. "If you marry him, I'll be his best man."

Jean realized there could be no greater seal of approval, or one more hard-admitted, than that.

* * *

A week later, House was much recovered. Although not quite running marathons yet, he was walking without his cane and well enough to go home. He had been given time off to recuperate, and declared he wasn't going back to work until he could _run _back to work. Quite how likely that was, Jean wasn't sure, but he seemed very positive.

The hospital loaned House an exercise bike, to help him work through muscle atrophy. Jean found Wilson was occupied for a while helping House wedge it in to his living room between the couch and the piano, and making sure House was generally settled in. Once that was done, though, he seemed able to turn his attention back to Jean. He called her at work one morning, taking her by surprise.

"I'm so sorry we had to cancel Yosemite. Look, to make up for it a bit, I've booked us a table at Cafe Spiletto tonight," he told her. "Best food in town. Don't eat lunch."

Jean agonized through the afternoon, arriving for dinner with a fast-sinking heart, knowing what was to come. She didn't know what to do. Yes, she cared deeply for Wilson, and she was sure that he loved her. But that didn't seem to be enough. Nothing like enough. The baggage was simply enormous, and she couldn't see herself being able to carry it all.

She sat in the restaurant while Wilson was charming, polite, kind, asked after her day, told her about his day. She felt she was about to turn his world upside down, and a show tune started to jangle through her head: _Sit Down You're Rockin' The Boat_. Maybe it would be easier to say yes, marry him, settle down in Princeton...

But as she watched him perusing the menu, making suggestions as to what they might eat, she had an insight. She was seeing Wilson's relationship with House as an obstacle to their relationship. But in fact Wilson had been in a relationship with House for more than fifteen years, while she had been going out with Wilson for less than one. Whose relationship was interrupting whose here, exactly?

Suddenly Jean couldn't stand it anymore. "James--I can't let you do this."

She only realized later that she'd switched back to calling him by his first name. He raised a surprised bushy eyebrow. "Do what?"

"Propose. You are going to, aren't you?"

His mouth fell open. "What--but--how did you know?"

Jean really didn't want to mention House. "I just knew. James--I can't, I just can't."

The boat was overturned. He covered his face with his hands, then took them away and looked straight at her through huge devastated brown eyes. "Why not? Jean, I love you."

Jean found herself incapable of explaining anything. She could not bring herself to admit to the knowledge she gained on Doorstep Night, let alone what she'd seen in House's office, in her own private theater. Without that, she could hardly articulate anything at all.

She fell back on clichés--that she could never be a stay at home wife, had to work, that there was nothing for her at Princeton and she had to go where the jobs were, that long distance relationships are hard--all true, but she could tell Wilson saw these for the excuses they were. The complete lack of comprehension on Wilson's face made her want to cry with shame. He deserved better than this, goddamnit--

"I--I have to go," Jean stuttered, stood up, and practically ran out of the restaurant. She hailed a cab and asked for 221B Baker Street.

* * *

House was at home. He had seen the restaurant reservation in Wilson's calendar, had a good idea that Wilson had turned his attention back to Jean and remembered he'd never offered that ring. House waited in his apartment, playing the piano, and musing on the strangeness of the situation. He was pretty sure he knew what Jean would do, and thought it fairly likely that a distraught Wilson would turn up on his doorstep.

When the knock came, though, it wasn't Wilson's knock. House got up to answer the door, thinking how good it was not to have to plan every movement around leg pain.

Jean stood there, looking shell-shocked. House stood aside to let her in. She came inside, but paused just inside the door.

"You said no," House diagnosed without any problem. "You're an idiot. What did you say to him?"

"Nothing. I couldn't explain at all!" Jean was obviously very near tears.

House disliked crying women, and kept several feet away. "You just said, no I can't marry you, and ran away?"

"Pretty much. I just stopped to tell you, I'm going to Berkeley to meet the department head, now, tonight if I can get a flight."

"Oh great, so you really are running away, and leaving me to pick up the pieces," House groused.

"This is not the way I wanted things to end either!" Jean clenched her fists. "Wilson still has you, and his job, and a home. Right now I don't have _any _of that. I can't fix things with Wilson, so I'm going to try and sort out the rest of it."

"So what the hell am I supposed to tell him?" House demanded.

"You can tell him as little or as much as you like." Jean paused, and added more bitterly than House had seen her before, "I know it'll be difficult, but hey, I'm sure the comfort sex afterward will be well worth it."

And she turned on her heel and left.

* * *

Wilson eventually arrived, two hours later. House was pounding away on the exercise bike when he heard the familiar key in the lock, and looked up to see Wilson come in, looking a little unsteady on his feet, with a curiously neutral expression on his face. House guessed Wilson had spent the two hours drowning his sorrows by himself at Cafe Spiletto.

"So, this evening I was going to ask Jean to marry me," Wilson said evenly. "But she stopped me before I even got the chance." He obviously read House's face. "You already know?"

"She stopped by and told me," House muttered, continuing to pedal.

"Oh, fucking great." Wilson looked at the floor, then back up at House. "I couldn't figure out how she knew. You must have figured it out already, right? You told her?" House nodded. "In fact you seem to know everything already, before me even!" Suddenly Wilson's face darkened and he looked more angry than House had ever seen him in his life. "_Have you been screwing Jean behind my back?" _

"What? Fuck! No!" House spluttered, mortified. Was _this _what Wilson had been thinking for the last two hours?

Wilson looked ready to kill House on the spot. "Convince me. Or I'm walking out of here and never coming back."

House stopped pedaling and looked Wilson straight in the eye. "I have not _ever _had sex with Jean. Or kissed her, or touched her in any inappropriate way, or seen her naked. Or was even tempted." He saw Wilson's face gradually relax as he spoke, then turn skeptical. "It's true. I just wasn't attracted to her. And I seriously doubt she was to me."

He watched with some relief as Wilson slowly accepted this, and then sat heavily down on the couch. House got up from the bike, and his hand twitched for a cane that was no longer there. He sat down on a nearby armchair and put the errant hand firmly down on the arm.

"Alright, you weren't sleeping with her. But something's been going on." Wilson now looked perplexed and bemused.

For a minute House was tempted to deny this, deny everything. Why should he have to clean up after the mess Jean had left? And yet this wasn't really an option. If he didn't say something, Wilson would continue to lack any understanding, and would never get closure.

House had to decide how much to tell him. He opted out of explaining the voyeur thing (he really couldn't bring himself to admit to the scene he'd set up for Jean in his office) and instead decided to keep it simple.

It didn't seem to be time to go dancing around the issue, so he said bluntly, "Jean knew about us. That we like to fuck."

Wilson's jaw dropped. "What? You _told_ her?"

"Wilson, stop assuming I've been trying to screw up your relationship when I've been working my ass off to keep you together for the last year!" House almost roared in exasperation. "I tried to tell you, even! Don't you remember--your office, you'd just drained me--" He mimicked the vampire fangs.

Wilson let out an incredulous laugh. "I remember. You were _serious?_ You thought she might want to watch us?" He shook his head. "I thought...I thought you liked her enough that you were about to suggest a threesome. That's why I left so quickly. I didn't want you to say it."

Fucking hell. "Never even occurred to me," House said honestly. "Look, what happened is she saw us kiss, and it didn't freak her out. Well maybe initially, but then she decided she was okay with it."

Briefly, House outlined to Wilson how Jean had seen them in Wilson's hotel apartment. Wilson listened but seemed to barely comprehend.

"Then if she was okay about it, what changed?" he asked.

House tried to articulate what Jean had tried to say: "It's one thing having a boyfriend who you know swings with his best friend--it can be cool, might even be a bit of a turn on. It's another to agree to spend the rest of your life with someone you know will be cheating on you with his best friend, possibly forever."

Suddenly Wilson laughed humorlessly. "You know there's a huge circle of irony here. Unless you already know...but I don't think you do."

"Know what?" House said suspiciously.

Wilson spoke slowly and deliberately. "Know that Stacy knew the same thing--we _like to fuck_."

House froze in his chair.

Wilson watched him closely, and clearly saw that House hadn't known, at all. "So she never told you. I always wondered."

House reached into a pocket for his Vicodin bottle, found it empty, withdrew his hand. "I don't believe you. Since _when_ did she know?"

"No idea, but I know when she spoke to me about it. You'd been going out more than four years, I was about to go off to Stanford. She came to my office one day and said, 'You and House, you're more than friends, aren't you?' I did deny it but she saw right through it. After all, you had given me a blowjob a few days before."

House believed him, and could barely speak. "But we hardly ever--then--that must have been one of the few--"

"I told her that," Wilson cut in. "And she just nodded, and left, and that was that. I thought she would talk to you about it, you talked about everything in those days, didn't you? I just assumed you'd spoken, and she was cool and you were cool, and it wasn't something I needed to worry about. I was about to move three thousand miles away, and we were operating under the Stacy Convention anyway."

"And you didn't mention it to me?" House said incredulously.

"And just _when _would have been a good moment?" Wilson demanded, his face suddenly red with remembered fury. "Over the phone from Stanford? Or when I came back to Princeton? When you'd just had an infarction and two operations, which _you _didn't fucking call _me _about, by the way, and I thought you were going to _die!_ What the fuck did anything else matter then!"

House was silenced, remembering. He hadn't wanted Wilson to be there, but Cuddy and Stacy had colluded in his stubbornness. House had always assumed that Stacy, at least, had wanted to prevent Wilson being there in case he disagreed with what they'd done while he was in the coma. Now he realized another layer--jealousy?--had possibly contributed.

That was way too much to handle right now. House pushed it away.

"You should have told me," House muttered.

"And you should have told me," Wilson replied.

There didn't seem to be much else to say after that. Wilson sighed, sat back on the couch, and the anger seemed to go out of him. His shoulders drooped and he just looked very sad.

House, with an effort, remembered that Wilson had his marriage proposal rejected by his girlfriend only a few hours ago. Wilson would surely want a quiet evening now, beer, TV, that kind of thing. House would be good.

"You can crash here if you want," he said gruffly. It was late in the evening now.

"You know what I want?" Wilson said unexpectedly. "If I've lost Jean because of me and you, then I damn well want to make it worthwhile. And, it's been a while."

"Oh?" House raised his eyebrows. They hadn't fucked around since before the shooting. "You mean..."

Wilson gestured with his hand; _c'mere_.

House tapped his thigh and got slowly to his feet. "I'm a lot more...flexible now, you know, since the ketamine. I can...kneel, for example."

"Really." Wilson's brown eyes glimmered and darkened to near-black. "Show me."

House dropped to the floor in front of Wilson, as Wilson unzipped his fly. House briefly wallowed in the pleasure of balancing on both knees, evenly, _painlessly_, before closing his eyes and taking Wilson's cock in his mouth.

_Ahhh _it had been a while since he'd given a blowjob, House preferred receiving them to giving. But fuck, it was good to give once in a while. To have Wilson getting harder with every precious lick, breathing faster and faster above, whimpering a bit, moaning now and clasping at House's head--

Wilson pulled back and out with something of a jolt, but didn't come, reminding House abruptly of the time Jean had watched them in his office. Wilson sat breathing for a second, then struggled to his feet, hissing, "Stay on your knees."

House stayed where he was, eying Wilson's bare legs as he dropped his pants. Wilson moved behind House, and reached around to unbutton House's pants and ease them down. House heard the snap of a condom, and was faintly amused at Wilson being always prepared, though he probably hadn't been reckoning on using it with House tonight. Huh, it had been even longer since they'd done _this_.

He heard Wilson spit on his hand, grunted as he felt Wilson begin to probe, and leaned forward, resting his arms on the couch (but keeping his weight on both knees, _ha_). Wilson reached around to start pumping House, and House started to sweat and groan from the double stimulation, as Wilson simultaneously rolled his cock while probing his ass.

And when he felt Wilson push inside properly a few minutes later, House was truly, truly ecstatic. Because without any lube apart from Wilson's saliva, it hurt. But that was _all _that hurt. For once the rush of sexual pleasure wasn't tinged or muted by burn from his thigh; the thrill of the thrust not tempered by the flinching of a body that wouldn't hold up to it. He came in a sticky glorious burst into Wilson's fist; Wilson followed a few seconds later, shuddering and clinging on to House's shoulder with his other hand.

They stayed like that for a minute, Wilson lying slumped across House's back, until House's legs started to complain. But both legs together, he noted with clinical satisfaction.

* * *

The next day, Wilson was getting ready to go to work, and as he pulled on his coat he said casually to House, "You owe me a hundred dollars, by the way. You interfered."

"Did not!" House said indignantly, but even as he spoke he hesitated, thinking of some of the conversations he'd had with Jean, particularly the one at the donor party. Not to mention the scene in his office, which he was not _ever _going to admit to. He saw Wilson watching him with a particularly beady eye, and decided discretion was the better part of valor. "I didn't interfere. But, as it was _us_ that caused the problem, I'll meet you halfway."

"Fifty dollars?" Wilson looked gratified, as if he'd been expecting a much harder fight. "Done."

"Allow me the chance to win my money back," House added. "I bet you fifty bucks I'll be back at work in two months, and I'll be _running _back."

"All eight miles?" Wilson shook his head, lips pursed in wry amusement. "Done."

"You and Cuddy better have the most awesome cases waiting for me when I come back," House declared.

Wilson went off to work. House lounged in his apartment for a while, then went out for a gentle jog.

* * *

A few days later, Wilson came around to House's apartment to tell him that Jean had called; she was back in Princeton, but only briefly.

"She was offered a job at Berkeley, and accepted," Wilson explained. "She only has a week left on her contract at Princeton, so she's just come back to clear her office here, pack her things and go. I'm just going to go over to her place to get stuff I left there." He hesitated, then added, "Wanna come?"

House drove Wilson over to her apartment, but thought it best to stay outside in the car; he didn't see Jean. As he waited, he was tempted to go in and tell her the comfort sex had been as good as she'd predicted, but reluctantly decided this wasn't a good idea.

Wilson was only in there ten minutes or so, emerging with a small bag of books, CDs and a toothbrush.

"You know, her new job will at least make it easy to explain to Cuddy why we broke up," he remarked, buckling himself into the passenger seat. "Actually, that was one of the most amicable break-ups I ever had."

"All your break-ups are amicable. You're practically famous for it. What did you talk about?" House couldn't help but ask, as he started the engine.

"I wished her luck in her new job, she hopes your ketamine treatment works out," Wilson related. "I said I'd look her up if I'm ever in Berkeley, and she said she'd let me know if she's ever back in Princeton, and we'd have a drink. And that was that." He paused. "A drink sounds good, actually..."

"A beer, barbecue ribs, and cheesecake to follow. " House pulled away from the curb. "Micky's Diner, here we come."

_

* * *

Postscript_

A couple of years later, Wilson received a book in the mail, titled _The Doctor-Doctor Relationship_. There was a dedication at the start: "To the doctors of my title. They know who they are."

Wilson read it avidly from cover to cover. It was an academic study, full of stats and data, case studies and sociological theory. Hard going, he inwardly admitted. But there were some chapters that had a certain familiarity to them; one about doctors prescribing for other doctors, and another about personal relationships between doctors (no assumptions were made about gender there, he noticed).

Wilson knew House had received a copy of the book too as he spotted a parcel identical to the one he'd got, stamped _University of California Press, _on House's desk_. _He failed to see House even deign to open it before it disappeared, and wondered occasionally if House had bothered to read it.

It was about another year later that he found Thirteen reading it in the conference room.

"Interesting book?" Wilson couldn't help but remark.

"Yeah," she said absently. "House gave it to me. Said if I was intent on pursuing a personal relationship in the team, I should at least find out what I was letting us all in for."

So House had re-gifted! Wilson was amused.

"Funny how the book seems to fall open at certain pages," Thirteen added, and to illustrate her point, closed the book and let it fall open. The page revealed had the chapter title: _Prescription Passion? Doctors, Drugs and Dependency_. She did it again, and this time the chapter that came up was called: _Hospital Hookups; Romance_ _and_ _Relationships._

"Can't think why that happens," Wilson murmured, and moved on.

END

**

* * *

Notes:**

Anyone interested in the references to musical numbers scattered throughout this fic, they are as follows:

Oklahoma and People Will Say We're in Love from Oklahoma!;  
I Could Have Danced All Night from My Fair Lady;  
Luck Be A Lady and Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat from Guys and Dolls;  
Tonight and I Feel Pretty from West Side Story;  
Hey Big Spender and If My Friends Could See Me Now from Sweet Charity;  
Food Glorious Food from Oliver!;  
Send in the Clowns from A Little Night Music;  
Another Openin' Another Show from Kiss Me Kate.  
Choice of songs, like so much else in this fic, owes a lot to the invaluable input of **srsly_yes**.

Thank-you very much for reading this fic! I do appreciate it and if you liked it I do hope you'll let me know.


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